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Patriotic Reader; 



HUMAN LIBERTY DEVELOPED 

J. 

IN VERSE AND PROSE, FROM VARIOUS AGES, LANDS, 
AND RACES, WITH HISTORICAL NOTES. 



HENRY B. CAERINGTON, U.S.A., LL.D. 

AUTHOR OF "BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION," 
ETC., ETC. 



IN SIXTEEN PARTS. 



THE PATRIOT'S CRY.— Psalm CXXXVII. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 



fey J13&r 






^ 



Copyrighted, 1887 and 1888, 

BY 

HENRY B. CARRINGTON. 



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PREFACE. 



The " Patriotic Eeader" has for its purpose the use of utter- 
ances that inspire good citizenship. The youth of America 
share in the excitements of the day, and, amid all their oppor- 
tunities for the study of history and science, are tempted to 
overvalue sensational culture, and postpone until they enter 
upon the serious duties of active life the real preparation for 
those duties. No apology is made for selections, or omissions, in 
this effort to contribute to their reading material. The restora- 
tion to a more general use of the grand words of our fathers, 
and those of the earliest and of classical times, is based upon 
that plain logic of all human history which asserts the love of 
liberty and love of country to be the yearning desire of the 
human soul. 

The trend of forty centuries was toward a " promised country ;" 
and Jerusalem of old was sacred not only as a shrine " to which 
the tribes went up," but as a beloved capital. The nineteen fol- 
lowing centuries only intensify the essential elements of that 
Hebrew devotion ; and every form of dissent, whether of despot- 
ism or anarchism, is repulsive to the true interests of society, 
which find the best happiness of the many through the happiness 
of each. Mere heroism is not always patriotic, but its purest 
type is where the general welfare involves sacrifice of self; and 
the struggles for liberty and country in other lands are as worthy 
of study as those which are peculiarly American. The efforts 
of Poland, Hungary, and Ireland have not been failures because 
of temporary defeat. The very record of sacrifice for country 



IV PREFACE. 

quickens and perpetuates patriotic sentiment, and to-day, more 
than ever before, the principles which actuated great leaders 
and adorned exemplar lives are more important, in the educa- 
tion of youth, than are the minute details of memorable battle 
action. 

In all true progress, however modified by ignorance or super- 
stition, there has been the influential sanction of some religious 
sentiment. The earliest Hebrew life was perfumed by its pres- 
ence, and prophecy and song still compete with narrative, to 
exalt the valor of those who made homage to some Superior 
Being the interfusing force of the best national being. 

In the United States there has been vouchsafed such a deliver- 
ance from inherited and antagonizing interests, that the youth of 
all sections, as never before, can value the utterances which called 
the nation into life, and as they cherish the fireside divinities of 
their own homes, no less proudly honor the words and deeds of 
those who early trod the wine-press, that through their labors the 
perfected liberty might come forth purified, clear, and wholesome. 

A single volume for practical use, which seeks to stimulate 
toward higher citizenship, through patriotic expression and ex- 
ample, can, at best, only open a door of the temple, and invite a 
considerate regard for the limited view presented. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 

PAGJ4 

Introduction 1 

The Antiquity of Freedom William Cullen Bryant ... 2 

The Equality of Man Cunningham Oeikie 4 

Loyalty to Country (b.c. loth century) (Trans- 
lated from " Pentaur's Egyptian Epio" by 

E. L. Lushington, anil arranged for Reader 

by " Egyptologist") Lysander Dicker man .... 6 

Hymn to Ammon Ra (Translated from chapter 

xv. of the Egyptian " Book of the Dead," 

and arranged for Reader) Lysander Diekerman .... 7 

The Memorial Day of the Exodus (b.c. 1491). (From 

Address : by permission edited for Reader) . Rabbi Raphael Lasher ... 8 

Patriotic Song of Moses Special Translation 10 

Moses in Sight of the Promised Land (b.c. 1451) Andrew Preston Peabody . . 12 

Hebrew Patriotism 13 

The Hebrew Jubilee (b.c. 1490) Sylvester Graham 15 

Patriotic Song of Deborah and Barak (b.c. 1285) Special Translation 16 

The Patriot's Cry (Paraphrase of Psalm cxxxvii.) 20 

Gideon the Patriotic Leader (b.c. 1245) 21 

The Patriot Citizen's Challenge (Job, chap, xxxi., 

B.C. 1530) Special Translation 24 

The Destruction of Sennacherib (b.c. 710) . . . George Gordon Noel (Lord 

Byron) 25 

The Overthrow of Belsbazzar (b.c. 538) .... Bryan Waller Procter (Harry 

Cornwall) 25 

The Patriotic Maccabees (For the Patriotic 

Reader) Brooke Her/ord 27 

The Hebrew Minstrel's Lament New England Magazine, 1832, 

p. 60, " Z" 30 



PART II. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 

Introduction 31 

" The Best Omen our Country's Cause" . . . Homer's Iliad, Book XII. . . 32 

Self-Sacrifice for Country (Tragedy of Leonidas). Michel Pichat 34 

The Spartans' March Felicia Dorothea Hemans . . 35 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAQB 

The Death of Leonidas George Croly 30 

The Greeks' Return from Battle Felicia Dorothea Hemant . . 38 

A Country imperilled by Discord Titus Quintius 38 

The Rights of the People upheld Oaius Cannleius 41 

Pericles and Aspasia .... Walter Savage Landor ... 42 

Virtue before Riches Socrates ... 43 

Popular Vigilance the Bulwark of the Constitu- 
tion . Demosthenes 45 

Popular Rights above Privilege Cains Gracchus 47 

Rome and Carthage locked in Strife Victor Hugo 49 

Merit before Birth Cuius Marina 50 

The Dignity of Citizenship Marcus Tullius Cicero .... 52 

Industry an 1 Integrity the Hope of the State . Marcus Fortius Cato .... 53 

Cicero denounces the Traitor Catiline Marcus Tullius Cicero ... 55 

The Traitor Catiline's Defiance (Tragedy of Cat- 
iline) George Croly 56 

Virtuous Liberty Priceless (Tragedy of Cato) . Joseph Addison 58 

Cassius instigates Brutus against Caesar 

(Tragedy of Julius Caesar) William Shakespeare .... 60 

Antony's Speech over the Body of Caesar 

(Tragedy of Julius Caesar) William Shakespeare .... 62 

Brutus's Speech on the Death of Caesar (Tragedy 

of Julius Caesar) William Shakespeare .... 65 

The Character of Brutus Fisher Ames 66 

Caesar crossing the Rubicon James Sheridan Knoioles ... 67 



PART III. 

THE PATRIOTISM OP OUR POUNDERS. 

Introduction 69 

The Landing of the Pilgrims Felicia Dorothea Hemans . . 70 

The Founders of our Government William Merchant Richardson 71 

Tho Pilgrims Edward Everett 72 

Character of the Puritan Fathers Francis William Pitt Green- 
wood 75 

Two Centuries from the Landing of the Pilgrims. Wilbur Fisk Crafts 77 

In Memory of tho Pilgrims, 1820 Grenville Mdlcn 78 

New England's Dead Isaac McLellan, Jr SO 

The Pilgrim Fathers, — Whero are They ? . . , John Pierpont 82 

The Rock of the Pilgrims George (P.) Empson Morris . . 83 

The Song of the Pilgrims Thomas Cogswell Upham . . . 84 

The Fathers of New England Charles Sprague 85 

The Huguenot Exodus to America William Cain Moragne ... 87 

The Landing of the Huguenots William Cain Moragne ... 89 

The Friends in New Jersey Henry Armitt Brown .... 90 

The Pilgrim's Vision Oliver Wendell Holmes ... 92 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PART IV. 
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 

PAGE 

Introduction 94 

Independence John Pierpont 95 

Independence Day James Gillespie Blaine . . 96 

Great Britain neglects her Colonies (1765) . . . Colonel Isaac Barre .... 97 

Great Britain warned of her Danger (1766) . . William Pitt 93 

America resents British Dictation (James Otis). Lydia Maria Child .... 101 
The Repeal of Obnoxious Laws demanded (Jan- 
uary 20, 1775) William Pitt 103 

Removal of the Boston Garrison dem in lei . . William Pitt 105 

Conciliation or War (March 22, 1775) Edmund Burke 107 

"War is actually begun" (March 23, 1775) . . Patrick Henry 109* 

Paul Revere's Ride (Night of April 17, 1775) . Henry Wadsmorth Longfellow. 112 

The Battle of Lexington (April 17, 1775) . John Greenleaf Whittier . . 116 

The Revolutionary Alarm George Bancroft 117 

The Rising in 1776 Thomas Buchanan Bead . . 118 

The Battle of Bunker Hill From " Battles of the Amer- 
ican Revolution" .... 121 

Independence Bell, Philadelphia Anonymous 122 

Independence a Solemn Duty Richard Henry Lee .... 12-t \ 

Independence explained (August 1, 1776) . . . Samuel Adams 126 

Great Britain must yield or lose America (May 

30, 1777) William Pitt 127 

America still Unconquerable (November 18, 

1777) William Pitt 130 

The Use of Savage Allies denounced William Pitt 132 

Continued War with America is Folly (177S) . . Charles James Fox .... 133 
Americans will celebrate 1775 as a " Glorious 

Era" John Wilkes 134 

America seated among the Nations (March 5, 

1778) Jonathan Mason 136 

A Nation born in a Day John Quincy Adams .... 136 

Ode for Independence Anonymous 138 



PART V. 

MEMORIALS OP WASHINGTON. 

Introduction. Including " Washington a Model 

for Youth" Zcbulon Baird Vance. . . . 139 

Washington, the Brightest Name on History's 

Page Eliza Cook 140 

Washington before the Battle of Long Island 

(August, 1776) 142 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAfll 

■Washington's Farewell to the Army 143 

General Washington's Resignation as Com- 
mander-in-Chief 144 

From President Washington's First Speech in 

Congress (April 30, 1789) 145 

Presi lent Washington's Response to the French 
Ambassador on Receipt of the Colors of 

France (1796) 147 

From Washington's Farewell Address (1796) 148 

The Character of Washington - William Smyth 152 

The Memory of Washington Edward Everett 154 

The Glory of Washington Henry {Lord) Brougham . . 156 

The Attributes of Washington Charles Phillips 157 

The Foreign Policy of Washington Charles James Fox .... 159 

The Birthday of Washington Rufns Choate 160 

The Birthday of Washington ever honored . . George Howland 161 

The Washington and Franklin Memorials linked. John Quinsy Adams .... 163 

Centennial Birthday of Washington Daniel Webster 164 

Memorabilia of Washington From " The Obelisk" . . . 166 

The Mount Vernon Tribute Anonymous 168 



PART VI. 

MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 

Introduction 169 

The Putnam Tablets 172 

Fort Moultrie in 1776 and 1876 John Thomas Wightman . . 172 

Bunker Hill Monument begun. Its Purpose 

(1825) Daniel Webster 175 

The Bunker Hill Monument completed (1813) . Daniel Webster 176 

The Washington Monument begun (1848) . . . Robert Charles Winthrop . . 177 

The Washington Monument completed (1885) . Robert Charles Winthrop . . 180 

The Perry Monument dedicated (1860) .... George Bancroft 181 

The Saratoga Monument begun (1877) .... Horatio Seymour 183 

The Saratoga Lesson (1877) George William Curtis . . 185 

The Monmouth Monument begun (1878) . . . From " Historical Address" . 187 

The Groton Heights Monument (1879) .... John Joseph Copp 189 

The Groton Heights Lesson (1879) Leonard Woolsey Bacon . . 192 

The Yorktown Monument begun (1881) .... Robert Charles Winthrop . . 194 

The Yorktown Lesson (1881) Robert Charles Winthrop . . 196 

The Bennington Monument begun (1887) . . . John William Stewart . . . 198 

The Jasper Monument dedicated (1881) .... John Brown Gordon .... 200 

The Putnam Monument dedicated (1888) . . . Henry Cornelius Robinson . . 202 

The Surrender of Burgoyne James Watts De Peyster . . 205 



CONTENTS. IX 
PART VII. 

DEMANDS OP THE PRESENT AGE. 

PAGE 

Introduction 206 

T ,. f The Present Age Daniel Webster 206 

1Hg i The History of Liberty .... Edward Everett 207 

True Glory John Milton 208 

God in History George Bancroft 208 

The Present an Age of Revolutions Edward Everett 209 

What constitutes a State Sir William Jones 211 

The Men to make a State Georr/e Washington Doane . 212 

Liberty a Solemn Responsibility Orville Dewey 214 

True Liberty honors Authority (1645) .... John Winthrop 215 

True Liberty measured by Intelligence .... John Caldwell Calhoun . . . 218 

Despotism and Democracy Incompatible .... Edmund Burke 219 

Socialism and Democracy Incompatible .... Alexis Charles de Tocqueville. 220 

Christianity and Democracy harmonize .... Robert Raikes Raymond . . 222 

Christian Citizenship Wendell Phillips 223 

The Inhumanity of Slavery William Cowper 224 

Liberty and Slavery contrasted Laurence Sterne 226 

Delayed Liberty is but Mockery Louis Sebastien Mercier . . 227 

Popular Government the Most Just Daniel Sharp 228 

National Distinction depends upon Virtue . . William Ellery Charming . . 230 

Moral Power the Mightiest John McLean 231 

Moral Reform the Hope of the Age Lyman Beecher 232 

Temperance Reform Most Imperative Edward Everett 234 

The Reformer's Trials Henry (Lord) Brougham . . 236 

True Patriotism is Unselfish George William Curtis . . . 237 

True Patriotism embraces Mankind John Thornton Kirkland . . 238 

True Patriotism inculcates Public Virtue . . . Henry Clay 240 

Patriotism assures Public Faith Fisher Ames 241 

Patriotism Broad as Humanity Increase Cooke 243 

Heroic Example has Power Richard Salter Starrs, Jr. . 244 

Heroes and Martyrs to be honored Edwin Hubbell Chapin . . . 245 

The Nobility of Labor Orville Dewey 246 

Labor is Worship Frances Sargent Osgood . . . 247 

Idleness a Crime From Magazine " Civics" . . 249 

International Sympathies on the Increase . . . Francis Wayland 250 

Europe and America have Common Responsibil- 
ities Daniel Webster 251 

The United States of Europe foreshadowed . . Victor Marie Hugo ... 252 

The Old World and the New Lewis Cass 254 

The Spirit of the Age adverse to War .... John Watrous Beukwith . . 256 

The Reign of Peace foreshadowed Charles Sumner 258 

Duty to One's Country William Cowper 260 



X CONTENTS. 

PART VIII. 

SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. PA0B 

Introduction 261 

/-Address, July 4, 1787 Joel Barlow 262 

Includingj " « " 1793 J. Q. Adams 263 

{ " " " 1796 John Lath-op 265 

Columbia Timothy Dwight 266 

Theory of the American Revolution .... Daniel Webster 267 

The Example of our Forefathers Jared Sparks 268 

The American Experiment James Madison 269 

The Government of the People George Bancroft 270 

Necessity of the Union John Jay 271 

The Nature of the Union Charles Daniel Drake ... 272 

\ The Federal Constitution Benjamin Franklin 273 y 

A Republic the Strongest Government Thomas Jefferson 275 

American Liberty is Reasonable and Just . . . Edwin Percy Whipple . . . 276 

American Responsibility measured Joseph Story 277 

American Liberty on a Permanent Basis . . . George McDuffie 280 

American Citizenship and its Duties Levi Woodbury 281 

America's True Greatness William Henry Seward . . . 283 

America's Intrinsic Strength John Bright 284 

America without a Parallel Martin Van Buren 286 

America in the Front Rank of Nations .... Daniel Webster 287 

America, the Colossus of the Nations Newton Booth 289 

America an Aggregate of Nations ....... Martin Farquhar Tupper . . 290 

The American Patriot's Hope Thomas Eioing 291 

America's Contributions to the World Gulian Crommelin Verplanck. 293 

American Enterprise Older than Independence . John Wilkes 294 

The Union a Geographical Necessity Alexander Hogg 295 

Union linked with Liberty (1833) Andrew Jackson 297 

Liberty and Union One and Inseparable .... Daniel Webster 298 

The Value of the Union (Battle of New Orleans). Matt. Whitaker Ransom . . 299 

Our Country is One Grand Poem Hugh Swinton Legare . . . 301 

Vast Territory no Bar to Union John Randolph 302 

Internal Improvement a Bond of Union .... John Caldwell Calhoun . . . 302 

The Ship of State William Parsons Lunt . . . 304 

The South in the Revolution Robert Young Hayne .... 305 

America's Greeting to England Washington A Us ton .... 306 

America William Cullen Bryant ... 308 



PART IX. 

PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 

Introduction 309 

Great Examples Edward Everett 309 



( Great Examples Lord Byron 310 

1 "Webster Still Lives" Boston Courier 310 

[ John Adams's supposed Speech . Daniel Webster ..'.... 311 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAOB 

What makes a Hero ? Henry Taylor 314 

Moses the First Liberator Timothy Dwight 314 

The Last Hours of Socrates (470-399 B.C.) • . . Epes Sargent 316 

Alfred the Great (848-901 a.d.) Charles Dickens 317 

William the Silent (1533-1584 a.d.) John Lothrop Motley . ... 318 

John Milton gives Eyesight to Liberty (1608- 

1674 a.d.) Homer Baxter Sprague . . . 319 

William Pitt ("An Ode to Mr. Pitt") Annual Register, 1759 ... 322 

William Penn Peter S. Duponeeau .... 324 

Jonathan Trumbull Isaac William Stuart .... 325 

Benjamin Franklin (June 11, 1790) H. G. Biquetti de Mirabeau. 326 

Franklin's Epigrams Benjamin Franklin .... 327 

Samuel Adams George William Curtis . . . 328 

Revolutionary Veterans honored Daniel Webster 330 

Nathan Hale Edward Everett Hale .... 332 

Washington's Lament for Lafayette William Bradford 334 

Alexander Hamilton and John Jay Francis Lister Hawks . . . 335 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson Daniel Webster 337 

The Colleagues of John Adams Daniel Webster 339 

Death of John Quincy Adams Isaac Edward Holmes . . . 340 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the Last of the 

Signers George Lippard 341 

Daniel O'Connell Wendell Phillips 343 

Marco Bozzaris Fitz-Greene Halleck .... 345 

John Caldwell Calhoun Daniel Webster 347 

Henry Clay John Jordan Crittenden . . . 348 

Daniel Webster John Davis Long 350 

Charles Sumner Alexander Hamilton Rice . . 352 

Charles Sumner Lucius Qitintus Cincinnatus 

Lamar 353 

William Henry Harrison Ann Sophia W. Stephens . . 355 

Zaohary Taylor George Washington Doane . 357 

Abraham Lincoln Phineas Dinsmore Gurley . . 358 

Oh, why should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud ? . William Knox 359 

James Abram Garfield James Gillespie Blaine . . . 361 

Ulysses Simpson Grant Henry Ward Beecher .... 363 

Victoria of England, Jubilee Ode (1887) . . . . Robert Charles Winthrop . . 365 



PAET X. 

PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 

Introduction 367 

/- Liberty and Law Reverdy Johnson 367 

Including I Ireland Henry Clay 367 

l Greece Daniel Webster 368 

The Downfall of Poland (1794) Thomas Campbell 369 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAQC 

Heroism of the Hungarian People Louis Kossuth 371 

Liberty to Athena James Gates Percival .... 372 

The Irish Insurrection (1S44) Richard Lalor 8 heil . . . . 373 

Home Rule for Ireland William Ewart Gladstone . . 375 

Ireland near the Goal William O'Brien 376 

The African Chief William (fallen Bryant . . . 378 

Melancholy Pate of the Indians Joseph Story 381) 

The lied Men of Alabama Alexander Beaufort Meek . . 381 

The Red Men passing away 383 

The Indian Warrior's Last Song J. Howard Wert 384 



PART XL 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 

Introduction 387 

"On, on to the Just and Glorious Strife!" . . . Anonymous 387 

Regulus before the Senate of Carthage (255 B.C.) Elijah Kellogg 388 

Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua (71 b.c.) . Elijah Kellogg 391 

Galgacus to the Caledonians (a.d. 84) Tacitus 393 

Alfred the Great to his Men (a.d. 894) .... James Sheridan Knowles . . 394 

William Tell'a Address to the Swiss (a.D. L307). Schiller's " William Tell" . . 395 

Address of Robert Bruce (a.d. 1314) Robert Hums 397 

Rienzi's Address to the Romans (A.n. 1317) . . Mary Russell Mitford . . . 398 
Arnold von Winkelried at the Battle of Sempacb 

(A.D. 1386) Tames Montgomery 400 

Henry V. to his Troops (a.d. 1422) William Shakespeare . . . 402 

Gustavus Vasa to the Swedes (a.d. 1521) . . . Henry Brooke 403 

Story of Logan, a Mingo Cliicf (a.d. 1774) . . T homas Jefferson 404 

General Joseph Warren's Address (June 17, 

1775) John Pierpont 405 

General Francis Marion's Address after sup- 
pressing Mutiny (a.d. 1780) Francis Marion 406 

Charlotte Corday (A.D. 1793) Lamartine's " Girondists" . . 407 

The Last Speech of Robespierre (a.D. 1794) . . Epes Sargent 409 

Religious Distinctions behind the Age (a.d. 

1796) •. . John Philpot Gurran .... 410 

Union with England not Ireland's Choice (a.d. 

1800) Henry Grattan 411 

Emmet's Vindication (a.d. 1803) Robert Emmet 412 

■^Address to the Young Men of Italy (a.d. 1848). Giuseppe Mazeini 414 

Justice to Ireland (a.d. 1843) Daniel 0' Council 415 

Treason disavowed (A.D. 1848) Thomas Francis Meagher . . 417 

Resurgite (a.d. 1877) John Boyle O'Reilly . . . . 41S 



CONTENTS. Xlll 
PART XII. 

PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 

PAGE 

My Country "Hesperian" 420 

Love of Country Sir Walter Scott 422 

My Native Village John Howard Bryant . . . 422 

The Patriot's Elysium .... James Montgomery 423 

The Songs of our Fathers Felicia Dorothea Hemans . . 424 

Our Native Song Eliza Cook 426 

Address to Liberty William Coxcper 427 

The Vision of Liberty Henry Ware, Jr 428 

" Dulce et decorum est pro Patria inori" . . . . James Gates Percival . . . 431 

What's Hallowed Ground? Thomas Campbell 432 

The Graves of the Patriots James Gates Percival . . . 433 

Columbia, the Land of the Brave David T. Shaxo 435 

Hail, Columbia, Happy Land Joseph Hopkinson 436 

The Eagle James Gates Percival . ... 437 

The American Eagle Charles West Thomson . . . 439 

The American Flag Joseph Rodman Drake . . . 441 

Our Flag is There American Naval Officer 

(1812) 442 

The Star-Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key 443 

Stars in my Country's Sky, are ye all there? . . Lydia Huntley Sigoximey . . 444 

Old Ironsides Oliver Wendell Holmes . . . 445 

E Pluribus Unum George Washington Cutter . 446 

The Battle-Hymn of the Republic Jxdia Ward Howe 448 

Keller's American Hymn Matthias Keller 448 

The New Song of Freedom Sylvanxis Dnjden Phelps . . 449 

The Land of the South Alexander Beaufort Meek . . 451 

The Battle of Eutaw William Gilmore Sinxms . . 453 

Pulaski's Banner Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 455 

Nathan Hale Francis Miles Finch .... 456 

Caldwell of Springfield Bret Harte 457 

The Lay of Groton Height Leonard Woolsey Barm, . 458 

The Soldier's Dream Thomas Campbell 461 

Crcscentius Letitia Elizabeth London . . 462 

Our Fathers' God : Hymn of the Mountaineers . Felicia Dorothea Hemans . . 463 

Union and Liberty Oliver Wendell Holmes . . . 465 

Polish War-Song James Gates Percival . . . 466 

Bruce and the Spider Bernard Barton 466 

Union Song of the Celt William Erigena Robinson . 468 

St. Patrick's Day M.J. Barry 469 

Marseilles Hymn ... Rouget de Lisle 470 

The Spanish Patriots' Song Anonymoxis 471 

Viva Italia! Viva il Re ! Charles Dimitry 472 

Song of the Greeks (1822) Thomas Campbell 474 

Harmosan Richard Chenevix Trench . ±7b 



XIV CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

The German's Fatherland Ernst Moritz Arndt .... 476 

The Watch by the Rhine. German National War- Max Schneckenburger. Trans- 

Song lated by H. W. Ducklen . 478 

German Battle-Prayer Karl Theodor Korner ... 479 

Prussian Battle-Hymn Karl Theodor Korner ... 480 

God Save the King 481 

Patriotic Eloquence Porter's Analysis 483 

The Patriotic Dead William Collins 485 



PART XIII. 

AMERICA SURVIVES THE ORDEAL OP CONFLICTING SYSTEMS. 

Introduction. Including Memorial Address of 

W. H. Fleming 486 

Harvest and Vintage Augustine Joseph Hinckley 

Duganne 488 

Gettysburg a Mecca for the Blue and the Gray . John Brown Gordon .... 490 

"Wake them in Peace. — God bless them AH" Wellesley Bradshaw .... 491 

The Great Question settled. — Through Gettys- 
burg to a Grander Union George William Curtis . . . 492 

No Conflict now Charles Devens 494 

The Nineteenth Century ends Slavery Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus 

Lamar 496 

Again Brethren and Equals James Willis Patterson . . . 497 

"Separate as Billows, but One as tho Sea." — Car- 
penter's Emancipation Picture unveiled 

(1878) Alexander Hamilton Stephens. 499 

Belligerent Non-Combatants. — " War is the Last 

Dread Tribunal" William Tecumseh Sherman. 502 

All under the Same Banner now, — "its broad 
folds nnrent, and its bright stars unob- 

scured" Laicrence Sullivan Boss . . 503 

Let us rejoice together George Augustus Sheridan . 505 

The Blue and the Gray Francis Miles Finch .... 508 



PAET XIV. 

NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 

Introduction 510 

Centennial Hymn John Greenleaf Whittier . . 510 

The Meditations of Columbia (A Cantata) . . . Sidney Lanier 511 

Independence Day, 1876. — "Welcome to the 

Nations" Oliver Wendell Holmes . . . 513 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

"Liberty's Latest Daughter" Bayard Taylor 514 

" Our National Banner" William Dexter Smith, Jr 

The Centennial of Constitutional Government . John Adams Kasson . . 

One Hundred Years a Nation Stephen Grover Cleveland 

The Principles of our Government Samuel Freeman Miller 

The New " Hail Columbia" Oliver Wendell Holmes . 

A Centennial National Hymn Francis Marion Crawford 

America commended to God's Favor James Gibbons 

The Ordinance of 1 7S7 noticed Israel Ward Andrews . 

The Supremacy of Organic Law John Randolph Tucker . 

The Declaration and the Ordinance George Frisbie Hoar . . 

" God Save the State" Charles Timothy Brooks 



PART XV. 



PATRIOTISM TO BE POSTERED IN THE SCHOOLS. 

Introduction 532 

Including I Address of Su P' t Draper, N.Y 532 

I " " Sup't Newell, Md 533 

"My Maryland" Robert Cooper McGinn . . . 534 

Free Schools inspire Loyalty to Country .... Francis Marion 535 

The American School System of the Future. — 

Character and Patriotism to be inculcated . Josiah Little Pickard . . . 536 

Our Education must be American Albert Edward Winship . . 538 

Patriotic Training in our Schools James Willis Patterson . . . 540 

The Problem of To-Day.— Patriotism the Great 

School Lesson Richard Edwards 542 

Instruction in Civics .as a Patriotic Duty . . . William Evarts Sheldon . . 545 

The Patriotic Chautauqua Movement John Heyl Vincent 547 

Temperance Education the Patriot's Ally.— 

Through our Youth the Nation lives . . . Mary Hannah Hunt .... 549 
The Nineteenth Century shapes the Twentieth 

Century. — Patriotism in School and College. Merrill Edward Gates . . . 551 

'■' To Thee, Country !" Anna Philipine Eichberg . . 553 



PART XVI. 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 
Introduction 555 

f Extracts from papers of Governor 

- . ,. j Pownall; Ex- President Woolsey 

g } and Count Schouvaloff; and The 

[ Neighborhood of the World 556 

The Triumphs of our Language James Gilbourne Lyon . . . 558 



XVI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Anglo-Saxon and the World's Future . . . Josiah Strong 560 

The Development of our Country Caleb Sprague Henry . . . 562 

The Future of the United States Charles King 564 

The Destiny of our Republic George Stillman Hillard . . 565 

A Happy Country William Woods Holden . . 566 

Our Country. — Practical Hints from General 

Sherman's Scrap-Book William Tecumseh Sherman . 568 

Our Language and Law to be 

Supreme 568 

No more West to hunt for or to 

hunt in 569 

Our Country not big enough to 

divide 570 

Localism 570 

E Pluribus Unum 571 

General Grant's Outlook for America George Sewall Boutwell . . 572 

Our Territorial Growth has marked our Duty and 

Destiny William Augustus Mowry . . 573 

America and Asia in the Future. — America the 

"Great Pacific Power" . . . . • .... William Elliot Griffis ... 576 
Future Generations summoned to witness our 

Work Daniel Webster 580 

America Samuel Francis Smith . . . 581 

Acknowledgments 583 

Biographical Index 587 



Including 



PATRIOTIC READER, 



PART I. 
HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The identification of long-lost cities, hierarchies, characters, 
and customs, through deciphered hieroglyphics, papyri, and ex- 
humed ruins, gives new value to the Old Testament records. 
The civilized world cannot separate its accepted principles of 
jurisprudence, nor its highest conception of the history and 
dignity of man, from the narrative, the philosophy, and the 
development of those records. That which the brightest states- 
men, philanthropists, and poets have found to be an inexhaus- 
tible source of material from which to guide men to better living, 
cannot be ignored, in a proper outline of patriotic life and ex- 
pression. Where lofty purpose, sublime self-denial, and a har- 
monious trend toward enlightenment and universal peace form 
the predominant element, it is impossible for any one justly to 
deny its presence and its power. 

Already we find well-preserved confirmatory memorials that 
recite the heroic deeds and utterances of Pharaohs who lived and 
reigned five hundred years before the exodus of the Hebrew from 
Egyptian bondage, with snatches from epic song that vie with 
the Song of Deborah in brightness of patriotic fervor, and move 
with the majestic sweep with which the jubilant outburst of 
Moses and of Miriam announced, for the benefit of succeeding 
generations, the First National Independence of a delivered 
people. Already the " Annals of Thothmes III." minutely de- 
1 l 



2 PATRIOTIC READER. 

scribe a battle of his period, which was fought on that remark- 
able field of Megiddo, whose natural strategic relations were so 
permanent as to have determining value as late as the days 
of Napoleon. "The Book of the Dead" is to be read in our 
own language. Eamses II. delivers to the nineteenth century 
his narrative of the deliverance of his country from assailing 
"myriads," and amid his pompous assumptions of mighty per- 
sonal prowess there is never wanting the glorification of country, 
with appeals to the people, high and low, that they " honor then- 
king, as inspired by the Lord of all the gods to be their deliverer 
and their protector." 

The essential unity of all history, in its recognition of patriotic 
service, is thus made manifest through the explorations of science ; 
imparting new dignity and value to discovery, and crowning with 
fresh endorsement the historical records which form so large a 
portion of the Hebrew Bible. 

The poet Bryant caught the spirit of the past so fully, that his 
lines may well introduce a record of patriotic expression and 
struggle which foreshadows the dawning of a universal liberty, 
when the endearments of a safe home and a free country shall 
belong to everybody. 



THE ANTIQUITY OP FREEDOM. 

Here are old trees, tall oaks and gnarled pines, 
That stream with gray-green mosses ; here the ground 
Was never trenched by spade ; and flowers spring up 
Unsown, and die ungathered. It is sweet 
To linger here, among the flitting birds, 
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks, and winds 
That shake the leaves, and scatter, as they pass, 
A fragrance from the cedars, thickly set 
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades, — 
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old, — 
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years, 
Back to the earliest days of Liberty. 

O Freedom ! thou art not, as poets dream, 
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs, 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 

And wavy tresses gushing from the cap 

With which the Koman master crowned his slave 

When he took off the gyves. A bearded man, 

Armed to the teeth, art thou ; one mailed hand 

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword ; thy brow, 

Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred 

With tokens of old wars ; thy massive limbs 

Are strong with struggling. Power at thee has launched 

His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee ; 

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.' 

Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep, 

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires, 

Have forged thy chain ; yet, while he deems thee bound, 

The links are shivered, and the prison walls 

Fall outward ; terribly thou springest forth, 

As springs the flame above a burning pile, 

And shoutest to the nations, who return 

Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 

Thy birthright was not given by human hands. 
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields, 
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, 
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
His only foes ; and thou with him didst draw 
The earliest furrows on the mountain side, 
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself, 
Thine enemy, although of reverend look, 
Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
Is later born than thou ; and as he meets 
The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, 
But he shall fade into a feebler age; 
Feebler, yet subtler ; he shall weave his snares, 
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
His withered hands, and from their ambush call 
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 



PATRIOTIC READER. 

Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien, 

To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 

To charm thy ear ; while his sly imps, by stealth, 

Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread, 

That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms 

With chains concealed in chaplets. 

Oh ! not yet 
May'st thou unbrace thy corselet, nor lay by 
Thy sword ; nor yet, O Freedom, close thy lips 
In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps, 
And thou must watch and combat till the day 
Of the new earth and heaven. But wouldst thou rest 
Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, 
These old and friendly solitudes invite 
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees 
Were young upon the unviolated earth, 
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new, 
Beheld thy glorious childhood and rejoiced. 

WlHUM CULLEN BRYANT. 



THE EQUALITY OP MAN. 

Genesis stands at the head of the literature of the world, the 
oldest complete book in existence. The earliest writings that 
compete with it are those recovered in late years from the ruins 
of Nineveh and the tombs of Egypt ; but neither the Euphrates 
nor the Nile lias given us anything that will compare in mani- 
fold value, far less in spiritual grandeur, with this Hebrew relic. 

The very plan of Genesis is enough to show its superiority to 
all other primeval literature. It is an introduction to the deal- 
ings of God with man. Human interests and human occupa- 
tions of all kinds are touched in the development of this one 
subject. It gives us glimpses of ancient life more than a thou- 
sand years before Herodotus, the great father of history, was 
born, and these are corroborated by every advance of knowl- 
edge from other sources. Nor is the history given in Genesis 
like the pompous inscriptions of equal antiquity left in Egypt or 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 

Babylon. We have the every-day life of the people, the light 
and shadow of human hopes and fears, the flesh-and-blood 
forms of beings like ourselves, though separated from us by 
forty centuries. 

Written daring widely different states of society and culture, 
with men of all ranks, from the Eastern king to the simple 
husbandman and herdsman, among their authors, all the books 
introduced by Genesis are linked together in a mysterious har- 
mony of tone and aim, the last completing what all the rest 
slowly advance. All other writings of antiquity fail to realize 
the dignity of man as man, and ignore the existence of the 
people, except as a mere background to the deeds and glory of 
the dignified few. In Scripture, however, including its first 
book, a higher spirit of liberty and respect for man is breathed. 
If these be found on a throne, its occupant has corresponding 
notice ; but if they have retired to the tent or the slav£ hut, 
they are followed thither, and the throne is passed by to reach 
them. The story of the common people of the chosen race is 
the great theme begun in G-enesis, and all the subsequent books 
continue it to its culmination, Anno Domini. 

Eespect for manhood, as such, colors the whole. From their 
first simple patriarchal constitutions, by which the community 
at large is represented through elders chosen from its own 
members, through the oppressions of Egypt, the wanderings 
in the desert, and the life in Canaan, till the destruction of the 
nation by the Eomans, desj)otism never extinguishes this vigor- 
ous national life. At times the elders are the channels of com- 
munication between the higher authorities and the people, and 
then again the community itself is gathered in one vast assem- 
bly to hear and decide great questions directly ; but in all cases 
liberty is respected, and the concurrence of the people as a 
whole is required in all public action. While all the world be- 
side was sunk in political slavery, the noblest ideas of liberty 
found a home in the pages of Scripture. These fostered a spirit 
of national independence which made the Jew invincible ; for, 
though he might be overpowered, he never submitted. 

The noblest inspfrations of freedom have ever been found 
among the populations which have drunk in most of the spirit 
of the Bible. It has been the charter of human rights from the 



6 PATRIOTIC READER. 

remotest ages, and it still silently protests against every social 
injustice and oppression. Even in Genesis this lesson is em- 
phatically taught, that true dignity consists, not in mere out- 
ward rank or illustrious birth, but in the higher qualities of the 
intellect and heart. 

Cunningham Geikie. 
Note. — Published in two hundred and fifty-six languages ; including 
Japanese, in 1888. — Ed. 



LOYALTY TO COUNTRY. 

Extract from " Pentaur's Egyptian Epic," of about the fifteenth century 
B.C., giving a description, by Eamses II., of his combat with the army of 
the Khita ; * probably the Hittites of Old Testament history. 

The king pierced the lines of the miserable Khita. He was 
alone. He turned to look behind him, and, lo ! around him were 
two thousand five hundred chariots of the vile Khita. Each 
chariot bore three men. The king had with him no chief, no 
marshal, no captain, no officer. Fled were his troops and his 
horses ! Then lifted he up his voice to God, and said, " I call 
on thee, Father Ammon. I am amid unknown multitudes. Na- 
tions are gathered against me. My numerous soldiers have for- 
saken me. When I called to them not one listened to my voice. 
But I think Ammon worth more to me than a million of sol- 
diers. I have never disobeyed thy word. Lo, have I not glori- 
fied thee, even to the ends of the earth ?" Ammon heard when I 
called. He gave me his hand. He called to me, from behind : 
" Eamses, Miamon, I hasten to thy aid. It is I, thy Father. I 
am worth to thee more than a hundred thousand men." 

My prayer was answered. To the right I hurled my arrows. 
To the left I overthrew mine enemy. I was like Baar f in his 
fury. The twenty-five hundred chariots encircling me were 
broken into splinters. Not a Khitan finds a hand to fight with. 
Their hearts faint within them, and fear palsies their limbs. 
I tumbled them into the waters like crocodiles. Head first I 

* In proper names the vowels have the same value as in Continental lan- 
guages. 

| Boar, — i.e., the Devil. 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 7 

pitched them over, one after the other. I slew them by thou- 
sands ! 

Then called the king to his archers, to his cavalry, to his 
chiefs who had failed to fight. He said, " Of what profit are 
such cowards? Is there one among you who has done his duty 
to his country ? Had I not been given power from above, ye 
would all have perished. Every day I have made some of you 
princes. To sons, I have transmitted the honors of their fathers. 
If any evil has happened to Egypt I have not held you responsi- 
ble. Whoever has come to me with his complaints, it is I who 
have administered justice, in person. Never did royal master 
for his soldiers what I have done for you. Yet you have played 
the coward, all of you. Not one of you stood by me when I 
had to fight. What a military deed is this to present at the 
Theban altar as an offering to Amnion ! What a shame ! What 
a disgrace, and to my soldiers, and to my cavalry ! Yet the whole 
world has seen the path of my victory and my might. People 
saw it, and will repeat my name even in remote and unknown 
lands. Of the millions who saw me to-day, not one paused in 
his flight. All dropped their arrows and fled or turned to me in 
supplication." 

Lysander Dickerman. 



HYMN TO AMMON RA. 

From the fifteenth chapter of the Egyptian epic, " The Home of the Dead. 

Hail to thee, Ea ! O self-created God ! 

With crowns of the North and the South on thy head, 

While on thy brow sits the goddess Ne-bun.* 

How watchful is she, of thy on-moving bark, 

And of thy foes, how mighty to punish I 

All those who dwell in the land of the dead 

Pay homage to thee, Father of light ; 

Lo, I bow once more at sight of thy disk, 

Not hiding from thee in slothful repose, 

But, renewed and restored by thee each day, 

* The viper, especially the Egyptian Uraeus. 



PATRIOTIC READER. 

Am numbered among thy loved ones on earth. 

Into this world of ages I entered ; 

Back to eternity hope to return. 

Because thou hast said that I am thine own. 

# * * * * # 

God ! sublime in thy splendor, 
Begetter of self, not begotten, 
Permit my ascent from this earth 
To dwell evermore with the blest, 
The spirits complete in Kher Xeter* 

* %■ ^ %■ * 

1 stretch out my hands to thy disk, 
O thou creator of ages. 
Gloriously sinking to Xun.f 

Who in his bosom thee keepeth, 

Thou grandest, supremest of gods. 

Oh, glory to Ba, and glory to Turn,} 

Besplendent with beauty, diadems, power. 

Ye traverse the heavens, encompass the earth, 

Gilding the zenith in majesty bright. 

Before thee, abased, behold the two lands, 

The gods of the West in thy beauty rejoice, 

And nations unknown give thee homage and praise, 

"While kings whom thou hast created and saved, 

To thee their trophies as offerings bring. 

From farthest horizon, they homage ascribe, 

Saying, "Hail to thy coming, O power divine ! 

O bringer of peace ! O author of life I" 

Ltsaxder Dickermax. 



THE MEMORIAL DAY OP THE EXODUS. 

(About 1491 B.C. " This day shall he a memorial day, throughout your 
generations." Book of Exodus, chapter xii. v. 14.) 

The Passover Feast of the Hebrew, symbol of physical, 
moral, and intellectual freedom, occurs when nature awakens 
from her long winter sleep, the blossoms appear, the grass decks 
the meadows, the birds' sweet music is again heard in the land. 

* Elysium. f Pronounced mxm. j The setting sun: pronounced toom. 



HEBREW AND RELATED >*AT: 9 

and over ail shines the sun in resplendent glory. All utter the 
_ >f freedom. F: - - echo 

in every hum an heart. It:-:... -.. - the magic 

call from the Angels trun. rreetion. a ray 

own light, penetrating th : - - 

as, and death, but th-_ Loss of J 
life, and liberty are but freedom a 

Every .: _• .are. like the merry lark. : _ rard 

with - - v feels that foe t is _ .. de- 

prived of it. mourns the loss and pines 

he who has - - ;ion can righ:. W e who 

live in a land ~ - :a harmo:- 

neneent law - _ " 

that we enjoy. Ask him who has I be i ttere fell 
subject to a tyrant's rule, and he will say that freedom :- 
rd the lips can utter or the mind contain. 

TL us salute :ih triuni] 

hymns, for it is the Memorial I - : i <nal 

liberty. It dec - world that nations have thi 

n themsel - - not - will; 

that governmei.: - - : _ : _ . and that 

all who admini-: in that cap: :.Iy. 

It :- - :.l freedom, which mm 

drowned in the nation's liberty. Alan is infiniJ than 

the citizen of any comn. _-nt. moral, and 

free I . ted in the imag BJek 

a member f society - trill and ink 

the nation and government a: - Man wa- 

madr : - : man. Personal freedom 

is therefore the high:- - - rty he fundamental prin- 

ciple of ah - from 

- and 
individual- e - . r to limb. life. h 

and intehV a but in all other r -- 

individual pen 

On this natal day f religious 
science, all hearts throb anew - hich 

is one of the : _ - 

human son" I nutiful old idle 



10 PATRIOTIC READER. 

name, no empty sound, has a sublimity and pathos which touch 
the tenderest chords, and brings to mind the recollection of all 
we hold most dear on earth. But even the precious word 
" Home" would fail of its happiest influence if we did not con- 
nect with it the idea of our country, the land of our birth, or 
where all our temporal interests are concentred. 

A man's country is not merely that of his birth, so often a 
matter of chance ; but the land of his happiness. Born in one 
quarter of the globe, without attachment for its associations, 
he may become so bound up and identified with that of his 
adoption as to hold it in every respect as his own true native 
land. In this light do very many of our citizens consider 
America. It has afforded shelter and refuge ; it has recognized 
the liberty which is theirs through a common humanity. In no 
other land is there like freedom in matters of conscience, such 
recognition and appreciation of the great principles of religion, 
and the universal obligation of all men to seek the highest 
happiness of all. 

Truth unites, ennobles, humanizes, and makes men both free 

and just. So shall we become more worthy of freedom, more 

worthy of our country, more sacredly consecrated to its welfare 

and its glory, and thus maintain our part as children of blessing 

and teachers of the world. 

Kabbi Kaphael Lasker. 



PATRIOTIC SONG OP MOSES. 

(Book of Exodus, chapter xv. About 1491 B.C.) 

I will sing to Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously; 
The horse and its rider hath He hurled into the sea. 
Jehovah is my Victory and Song, He is my deliverer ; 
He is my God, I will praise Him ; 
The God of my fathers, I will exalt Him. 

Jehovah is a hero of war; Jehovah is His name! 

The chariots of Pharaoh and his might He cast into the seas 

His chosen captains were drowned in the "Weedy Sea.* 

* Heb., " Sea of Weeds." Historically, the Eed Sea. • 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 11 

The depths covered them ; 

They sank to the bottom like a stone. 

Thy right hand, O Jehovah, glorious in power, 

Thy right hand, O Jehovah, broke in pieces the foe. 

In the greatness of Thy excellency Thou hast overthrown them 

that opposed Thee ! 
Thou didst let loose Thy fiery indignation, and it consumed them 

like stubble ! 
Before the breath of Thy nostrils the waters piled themselves up ; 
The floods stood up like a dam, — 
The waves were congealed in the midst of the sea. 

The foe said, " I will pursue, I will overtake, 

I will divide the prey, I will glut my revenge on them, 

I will draw out my sword and destroy them." 

Then Thou breathedst with Thy wind ; the sea covered them ; 

They whirled down like load in the rushing waters. 

Who is like unto Thee among the gods, O Jehovah ? 

Who is like unto Thee, — so gi'eat in Thy majesty, 

So fearful in glory, doing such wondrous deeds ? 

Thou stretchedst out Thy right hand, 

Then the earth swallowed them up. 

Thou leadest by Thy grace the people whom Thou didst redeem, 

Thou leadest them by Thy sti*ength to Thy holy habitation. 

The peoples shall hear it and be afraid, 

Trembling shall seize the inhabitants of Philistia. 

The princes of the tribes of Edom are already in terror ; 

The mighty men of Moab, trembling seizes them ; 

The inhabitants of Canaan melt for fear. 

Fear and dread fall on them, 

At the greatness of Thine arm they stiffen, in terror, like stone, 

Till Thy people, O Jehovah, have passed over; 

Till Thy people, whom Thou hast made Thine own, have passed 

over ; 
Till Thou shalt bring them in. and plant them on the mount of 

Thine inheritance, 
The place, O Jehovah, which Thou hast made Thy dwelling; 



12 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The Sanctuary, O Jehovah, which Thy hands have prepared. 

Jehovah is king for ever and ever ; 

For Pharaoh's horse, and his chariots, and his riders, went into 

the sea ; 
And Jehovah brought back over them the waters ; 
But the children of Israel went on dry land through the depths. 



MOSES IN SIGHT OP THE PROMISED LAND. 
(About 1451 B.C. See Book of Deuteronomy, chapter xxxiv.) 

The legislation of Moses ! Let me ask, what other legislation 
of ancient times is still exerting any influence upon the world ? 
What philosopher, what statesman of ancient times can boast a 
single disciple now ? What other voice comes down to us, over 
the stormy waves of time ? But this man is at this day — at 
this hour — exerting a mighty influence over millions ; the whole 
Hebrew nation do homage to his illustrious name. Though the 
daily sacrifice has ceased, and the distinction of the tribes is lost, 
though the temple has not left one stone upon another, and 
the altar-fires have been extinguished long ago, still, wherever 
a Jew is found, — and they are found wherever the foot of an 
adventurer travels, — he is a living monument of the power which 
this great Hebi'ew statesman still has over the minds and hearts 
of his countrymen. 

And now let us take one glance at this prophet, at the close 
of a life so laborious and honored. Up to his one-hundred-and- 
twentieth year, his eye was not dim, nor had his strength abated. 
But now, when he stands almost on the edge of the promised 
land, his last hour of mortal life has come. To conduct his 
people to that land had been his daily effort, and his nightly 
dream, and yet he is not permitted to enter it, though it would 
never have been the home of Israel, but for him. He ascends 
a mountain to die, and there the land of promise spreads out its 
romantic landscape at his feet. There is Grilead, with its deep 
valleys and forest- covered hills; there are the rich plains and 
pastures of Dan; there is Judah, with its rocky heights, and 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 13 

Jericho, with its palm-trees and rose-gardens ; there is Jordan 
seen from Lebanon downward, winding over its yellow sands ; 
the long blue line of the Mediterranean can be seen over the 
mountain battlements of the west. On this magnificent death- 
bed the Statesman of Israel breathed his last. Lest the grati- 
tude which so often follows the dead, though denied to the 
living, should pay him Divine honors, they buried him in dark- 
ness and silence ; and no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto 
this day. Andrew P. Peabody. 



HEBREW PATRIOTISM. 

The race which contended with the idolatry, the art, the 
science, and the luxury of ancient dynasties, and, through war, 
captivity, and reproach, handed down to us the writings of 
Moses, David, and the prophets, was imbued with the spirit of 
the loftiest patriotism. The songs of Moses and Deborah are 
above imitation in the grandeur of their patriotic zeal. The 
recitations of Job, and the mingled thunderings, wails, and jubi- 
lant anticipations of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and their co-patriots and 
prophets, have no rivals in the history of the race. Never did 
classic or modern pen so vividly set forth the wild rage of war, 
as when, through their glowing page, we seem to see the fire 
flash from grinding chariot-wheels, the very heavens to be 
shrouded in the dust of clashing squadrons, the air filled with 
the flight of arrows, and hear the snorting of impassioned horses 
and the mighty din of battle. 

The Hebrews first learned to protect their flocks and herds 
from wild beasts and robbers. Without cities, until they mas- 
tered those of their foes, inured to exposure, inspired by the 
promise of an inheritance of marvellous extent and richness, 
they acquired such dexterity in the fabrication of arms that, 
when once overpowered by the Philistines, they were only al- 
lowed to retain files, for sharpening ploughshares, lest they 
might convert the simplest tools into weapons for war. 

The Hebrew march into Canaan, intrusted by Moses to Joshua. 
was well directed. To have entered from the south would have 



14 PATRIOTIC READER. 

brought them at once into contact with the martial Philistines 
along the Mediterranean Sea, and the equally fierce people who 
dwelt between Philistia and the Dead Sea. The decimal organi- 
zation, established by Abraham and continued up to the present 
day, furnished an ever ready basis for the organization and 
mobilization of their fighting men. As successive appliances 
for war were invented by their enemies, so did they supplement 
their primitive arms and armor with the most modern and the 
best. 

Surrounded, they became self-dependent, and, so long as they 
sought no foreign alliances, they maintained their liberty. The 
marvellous secret of their power was a true independence of the 
sensual nations with whom they had contact. Assyria, Persia, 
Greece, and Egypt fell, as predicted by the Hebrew sages, be- 
cause sensuality was mightier to waste than the sword to save. 

It was this Hebrew people that entered Canaan, to realize a 
destiny of mighty achievement and gain the country which 
had been the inspiration of their history. Never did crusade 
have like incentive ; for the triumphs of their ancestors were 
accepted as simple guarantees of the full fruition of their hopes 
as a nation. The Hebrew conquest is full of scenes which pass 
like the sweep of some grand diorama. It was an age of heroes, 
even until we reach that most extraordinary period of human 
hisfouy, in which the entire region embracing Egypt, G-reece, 
Persia, and the valley of the Euphrates, bore witness to the 
glory of their valor, so long as patriotic instinct and training 
held them up to the plane of pure patriotic obligation. That 
was indeed a grand occasion, when Joshua, on completing his 
first conquest, and on the eve of retirement to private life,, as- 
sembled the mighty host in two grand divisions, upon the op- 
posite mountains of Ebal and G-erizim, and commanded them 
to recite aloud, responsively, the real conditions of true, per- 
manent independence. It is thus described by G-eikie : " Such 
a scene, transacted twelve hundred years before the first Punic 
war, a thousand years before the birth of Socrates, is unique in 
the history of the world. When did any other nation thus 
pledge itself to a high religious life, as the recognized condition 
of its prospeiuty, wherein disobedience of parents, inhumanity 
to the blind, to strangers, widows, and orphans, and even the 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 15 

removal of a neighbor's landmarks, were made crimes, to be 
severely punished ?" 

The custodian of the Alexandrian Library is mute ; his rec- 
ords are lost foi'ever; but the heroism, loyalty, and patriotism 
of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, Deborah, and David, have sur- 
vived Babylon, Nineveh, and Egypt, as examples for all times 
and races, that loyalty to country embodies in its purest exer- 
cise every principle that makes a nation great. 

Note. — Beside the original organization of the people, by fifties, hundreds, 
and thousands, upon a careful census basis, the Hebrew nation made pro- 
rata levies, enforced drafts, hired auxiliaries, supplied money and rations, dis- 
tinguished between men "trained to keep rank," and light troops or scouts, 
and combined all possible elements that could unify purpose and redound 
to the honor and success of their arms. Their exposure, eastward, to hostile 
incursions, led to the adoption of a "Signal System" of communicating 
watchmen by day, and fires by night, which called forth that matchless pre- 
diction, by Isaiah, of a future reign of peace, when " the watchmen should 
see eye to eye, and the Lord bring again Zion." 



THE HEBREW JUBILEE. 

(About 1490 B.C. " And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim 
liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a 
Jubilee unto you." Book of Leviticus, chapter xxv. v. 10.) 

Free is the bondman now ; each one returns 
To his inheritance. The man, grown old 
In servitude, far from his native fields, 
Hastes joyous on his way. No hills are steep ; 
Smooth is each rugged path. His little ones 
Sport as they go; while oft the mother chides 
The lingering step, lured by the way-side flowers. 
At length the hill, from which a farewell look, 
And still another parting look, he threw 
On his paternal vale, appears in sight. 
The summit gained, throbs hard his heart with joy 
And sorrow blent, to see that vale once more. 
Instant his eager eye darts to the roof 



16 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Where first he saw the light ; his youngest-born 
He lifts, and, pointing to the much-loved spot, 
Says, " There thy fathers lived, and there they sleep." 
Onward he wends ; near and more near he draws. 
How sweet the tinkle of the palm-bowered brook ! 
The sunbeam, slanting through the cedar grove, 
How lovely, and how mild ! But lovelier still 
The welcome in the eye of ancient friends, 
Scarce known at first ; and dear the fig-tree shade, 
'Neath which, on Sabbath eve, his father told 
Of Israel from the house of bondage freed, 
Led through the desert to the promised land ! 
With eager arms the aged stem he clasps, 
And with his tears the furrowed bark bedews; 
And still, at midnight hour, he thinks he hears 
The blissful sound that breaks the bondman's chains, 
The glorious peal of freedom and of joy. 

Sylvester Graham. 



PATRIOTIC SONG OP DEBORAH AND BARAK. 

" On the avenging of wrongs in Israel, when the people willingly offered 
themselves." Book of Judges, chapter v. (about 1285 B.C.). 

The petty kingdom of Hazor, overrun by Joshua a century 
before, had recovered under a successor of the same name, Jabin, 
who invaded Palestine. Deborah, "The Bee," a woman of rare 
wisdom and exalted patriotism, had been intrusted with judicial 
authority, and this she exercised under a palm-tree, bearing her 
own name, near the city gate. Fired by the cowardice of her 
countrymen, whom she could still arouse by her lofty and pas- 
sionate appeals, she peremptorily detailed Barak, " The Thun- 
derer," to march with ten thousand men to punish the invaders, 
predicting a complete success. He protested against the expe- 
dition unless she would accompany him in person to the field. 
She promptly assented, but warned him that the glory he might 
have achieved for himself, by prompt obedience, would fall to 
the lot of a woman, and not to him. The result was the first 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 17 

great victory since the days of Joshua. It quickened the passion 
for freedom, which had already received new impulse from the 
commanding genius of this judicial prophetess. 

The* song briefly glances at the early glory of her people, 
deplores their apathy and the desolation of their homes and 
marts of trade, and then mingles her praise of the brave volun- 
teers who accompanied Barak, with stinging rebuke of the self- 
ish and cowardly " stay-at-home" element. Some preferred to 
pipe to their flocks, and hear the bleatings of their sheep, out of 
danger. Others could not break away from their boats and 
their fishing at Acre and Joppa ; while the irony with which the 
indecision of Eeuben is styled " great heart revolves," is relieved 
by the praise of Issachar, who kept at the front with Barak, 
and of Zebulun and Napktali, whose highest joy was to risk 
life for country " on the high field of battle." The fruits of the 
victory are set forth in the picture of a fresh security around 
the scattered springs of water, which in times of disorder were 
infested by robbers, but by the overthrow of Jabin had been 
made secure. The river Kishon, which runs tumultuously in 
the wet season, and the stars themselves, are described as in 
sympathy with the national cause. The memorable field of 
Megiddo is the scene of the victory. 



DEBORAH'S SONG. 

Praise ye Jehovah, 

That the Leaders acted as became them in Israel, 

That the People showed themselves valiant. 

Hear, O ye Kings, — give ear, O ye Princes. 

I, to Jehovah, even I, — to Jehovah, — I will sing, — 

I will sing (sound the harp) to Jehovah, Israel's God. 

Jehovah, when Thou wentest forth from Seir, 

When Thou marchedst hither from the land of Edom, 

The earth trembled, and the heavens streamed down ; 

The clouds poured forth (dropped) waters, 

The mountains melted (flowed down) before Jehovah, 

Sinai flowed down, before the face of Jehovah, 

Before the God of Israel. 

2 



18 PATRIOTIC READER. 

In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, 

In the days of Jael, the (village) roads lay idle, 

(The caravans on the highways ceased) 

And travellers (wanderers) went round by secret (crooked) 

paths. 
Leaders had ceased in Israel ; — there were none, 
Until that I, Deborah, arose, a Mother in Israel. 
They chose new gods. Therefore was war (even) at the gates. 
Was there a shield seen, or a (single) spear, 
Among forty thousand in Israel ? 

My heart thanks you, ye leaders of Israel, — 

Ye brave ones, who offered yourselves from the people. 

Praise ye Jehovah ! 

Tell of it, ye that ride on white asses, 

Ye that sit in the gate of judgment, 

And ye that walk by the way. 

Far from the noise of archers ; in the places of drawing water, 

There, shall they rehearse the righteous deeds of Jehovah, — 

Even the righteous deeds of His leading Israel ; 

For then did the people (in safety) have judgment at the gates. 

Up, then ! Up, then, Deborah ! 

Up, then 1 Up, then I sing (lead) the song of battle. 

Arise, Barak I thou son of Abinoam, 

And lead back thy captives ! 

Then rushed down a small band of the chiefs and the people. 
Jehovah, Himself, came down to my help, against the mighty. 
Out of Bphraim came they whose root is in Amalek. 
After them Benjamin ; thou, (Benjamin) with thy people. 
The Leaders (law-givers) came down from Machir (Manasseh), 
And from Zebulun they that handle the marshal's staff, 
And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah, 
Issacbar pressed closely by Barak, on foot, into the valley. 

By the water-courses of Eeuben 

There were great (consultations) heart revolves. 

Why lingerest thou (Eeuben) in the sheep-folds 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 19 

To hear the pipings for the flocks ? 

By the water-courses of Eeuben there were great heart-recoils. 

Gilead (Gad) still lingered beyond Jordan; 

And, Dan, why keep to thy boats on the beach ? 

Asher still sits by the shore of the sea, and clings to his creeks. 

Zebulun was a people to jeopard their lives to the death ; 

And JSTaphtali, also, on the field of battle. 

The kings came and fought ; 

Then fought the kings of Canaan, 

At Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo ; 

But they took (not a single piece of silver) — 

No gain of money did they take. 

The heavens fought for us ; 

Even the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. 

The Eiver Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, 

(That torrent stream) the Eiver Kishon. 

Step forth, my soul, march on in strength. 

Then battered were the hoofs of the horses 

By reason of the gallopings, 

The gallopings of the mighty ones, their riders. 

" Curse ye Meroz,"* cried the Angel of Jehovah, 
"Bitterly curse ye the inhabitants thereof; 
For they came not to the help of Jehovah, 
To the help of Jehovah against the mighty." 

Blessed above women shall Jael be, 

The wife of Heber the Kenite. 

Blessed shall she be above women in the tent. 

He begged for water, and she gave him milk ; 

In the bowl of a prince she (gave) brought him (even) cream. 

But her (left) hand she stretched out to the tent-pin, 

Her right hand to the workman's hammer, 

And with the hammer she smote Sisera through the head. 

* A village on the line of pursuit, which refused to take part in the victory. 



20 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Yea, she pierced and struck through his temples. 
At (between) her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay, — 
At her feet he bowed, he fell, 
Where he bowed, there he fell (overpowered) dead. 

Through the window she looked out, the mother of Sisera, 

Looked forth through the lattice and cried, 

" Why is his chariot so long in return ? 

Why tarry the wheels (steeds) of his chariot ?" 

Her wise ladies answered her ; 

Yea, she returned answer to herself, 

" Have they not found ? have they not been dividing the spoil ? 

A damsel, two damsels, to every man. 

To Sisera, a spoil of divers colors of embroidery, 

Of divers colors of embroidery on both sides, 

A spoil for the neck." 

So let all Thine enemies, 
So let all Thine enemies perish, Jehovah ; 
But let them that love Him be as the sun 
When he goeth forth in his might. 



THE PATRIOT'S CRY. 
PARAPHRASE OF PSALM CXXXVII. 

Verses 1, 2, and 3. 

By Balylon's still waters we sat down and wept, 

Yea, we wept as we thought of Zion our pride, 
And we hung our mute harps, once in harmony swept, 

On the willows that mournfully bent o'er the tide; 
For they who had carried us captives away 

Would awaken our bosoms to gladness once more : 
Our spoilers commanded that Salem's sweet lay 

Should be breathed from our lips on Assyria's shore. 



HEBREW AND RELATED SAITOHS. "21 

Verses i. 5. and 6. 

But how could we sing the high -'»ng of the Lord 

In the land of the stranger, or yield us to mirth. 
When back to our bosoms, on every loved w 

Would cluster regrets for the land of our birth ? 
O Jerusalem dear, when no remembrance shall come 

Of thy splendors and glories, to darken my heart. 
Let my tongue be in silence perpetual dumb. 

Let my hand be forgetful of cunning or art. 

Vases 7. B, and 9. 

Remember the children of Edoin. I - 

When the day of .Jerusalem's vengeance is found. 
Oh. blast with thy lightning and smite with thy sword 

All who shouted. •• Raze, raze her proud walls to the ground." 
And thou. O daughter of Babylon, doomed to the dost, 

Blest ever be he that rewardeth thy crime. 
Who meteth thee measure tL gavesl to us. 

And leaveth thee shattered, to ruin and time. 



GIDEON, THE PATRIOTIC LEADER. 

DELIVERS HIS COUNTRY. BUT DECLINES A CROWN. 

(About 1245 B.C. See Book of Judges, chapter vii.) 

Again', i >r seven years, the oppression of Israel by Midian 
had been galling and complete. Aroused by the presence of a 
vast host, which filled the valley of Jezreel. -as locusts and the 
sand- of the sea. for multitude." Gideon, who commands but 
thirty-two thousand men. without armor or chariots, reeolvee 
i - his people. 

He needs brave, patriotic men. more than numbers, and pub- 
lishes a General Order. — •• Whoever is fearful and trembling, 
let him return, and depart from Mount Gilead." The official 
record reads as follows: -And there returned of the p 
twenty and two thousand, and there remained ten thou- 

We can conceive the emotions of his men as the lines of the 



22 PATRIOTIC READER. 

depleted regiments were contracted, and they began to measure 
their chances against a foe so mighty, and anxiously awaited 
the next command from their trusted leader. 

Descending into the very midst of the hostile camp, attended 
by one faithful orderly, or body -servant, Gideon listens to the 
camp gossip, until, through the recital of a dream by one of the 
nervous Midianites, he catches an inspiration, Avhich his soldierly 
wisdom converts into one of the most brilliant strategic move- 
ments known to history. 

He resolves upon a night attack, in three divisions. His 
numbers are too many for a surprise and too few to contend in 
formal battle-array. The crisis is instant, and a test must be 
immediate. The thirsty troops are sent to the river, and the 
great Captain calmly reads character, as they drink. Every 
man who deliberately dips water with his hand, self-possessed 
and with conscious benefit, is marked, and these number three 
hundred. All who dash their faces into the stream with silly 
haste, as if expecting a javelin or dart to cut short their drink, 
are summarily discharged. 

Gideon has applied his test, and is ready for action. 

The chosen three hundred form three equal bands. Each 
man has a lamp, in an earthen vessel, one day's rations, a 
sword, and a trumpet. The three divisions take position, so as 
best to concentrate the execution of their commander's will. 

Gideon, in person, leads one division, issuing an order to the 
two elsewhere assigned. "Look on me, and do likewise, and 
behold, when I come to the outside of the camp, it shall be 
that, as I do, so shall ye do." Distinct and clear, he makes his 
Order minute in every detail. His battle-cry rings down the 
centuries. 

" At the beginning of the second watch, when they had newly 
set the watch," Gideon was ready. At such an hour, when in- 
coming sentries make report, and the new guard goes fresh into 
the air, for a time hardly conscious of proper beat, or duty, a 
camp is presumed to be safe. Except that the usual flambeau 
on the idle chariot before the tent of some chief commander 
might break the gloom only to intensify the sense of security, 
profoundest darkness, and silence as that of the grave, enwrap 
the slumbering invaders of Canaan. 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 23 

In an instant, on three sides, as if universal, there is heard 
the strange crash of earthen vessels, while flashing signal lights, 
each to represent a division General, leap out of the black night. 
These multiply until three hundred flaming torches only intensify 
the enveloping gloom, as from three hundred trumpets and three 
hundred unseen trumpeters, each presumed to be responsible to 
some great leader, a charge is sounded ; and, quick as flash and 
trumpet note, from three hundred voices, as of so many official 
heralds, the official War-Cry, fearful watchword, goes through 
the night air into the very souls of the half-awakened Midianites, 
— " For Jehovah and for Gideon !" 

It is no longer the feeble and despised Hebrews who seem to 
girdle the plain with fire and trumpet and sword. It is the 
Lord, the despoiler of Pharaoh ! It is the Lord, who divides 
rivers and seas, and before whose breath the mightiest armies 
are as gossamer! Every tradition of Hebrew history, every 
vaguely reported exploit which had marked their early triumphs, 
must have come fresh to the souls of the disturbed multitude, 
as the watchword echoed and re-echoed above and around 
them. 

As when some building rocks with the quaking earth, or 
leaping flames enclose some crowded audience-hall, and panic 
makes men wild to do, they know not what, in delirium of 
fright, so the paralyzed but struggling Midianites rush for 
quickest relief from impending doom, cutting, no matter whom, 
or how, in the madness of the hour. 

Amid the screech and fury of frenzied camels, dashing driver- 
less among the writhing mass of men, the destruction goes 
on, merciless, remediless, complete. Victory is only limited by 
the endurance of the Hebrews ; for, at the first dawn of day, 
the men of Israel rally by thousands, to win easy mastery over 
the bewildered fugitives, who still destroy each other in the 
lingering tragedy of the night. 

The triumph is complete. The offer of a crown, with heredi- 
tary succession, is the spontaneous will of a grateful, liberated 
people ; while the patriot hero, a model for emulation and honor 
to latest time, rejects all but thanks, as he replies, " I will not 
rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you ; but Jehovah, 
God, He shall rule over you." 



24 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE PATRIOT CITIZEN'S CHALLENGE. 
(About 1530 B.C. Book of Job, chapter xxxi. Extract.) 

Now, what is the portion of Jehovah from above, 

And the heritage of the Almighty from on high? 

Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, 

And disaster to the workers of iniquity ? 

Doth He not see my ways, and number all my steps ? 

If I have walked with vanity, 
And my foot hath hasted to deceit, 
Let me be weighed in an even balance, 
That Jehovah may discern my integrity. 

If my step hath turned out of the way, 
And mine heart walked after mine own eyes, 
And if any spot hath cleaved to mine hands, 
Then let me sow, and another reap. 

If I did despise the cause of my man-servant, or 
Of my maid-servant, when they contended with me, 
What, then, shall I do when Jehovah rises up, 
What, indeed, shall I do when Jehovah ariseth, 
And when He visiteth, what shall I answer Him? 
Did not He that made me in the womb, make him ? 
And did not one fashion us in the womb ? 

If I have withheld the poor from their desire, 

Or have caused the widow to fail, 

Or have eaten my morsel alone, 

And the fatherless hath not eaten thereof; 

If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, 

Or that the needy had no cover ; 

If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, 

Because I saw my power as a judge in the gate,* 



* Allusions arc frequent, in ancient history, to the custom of hearing 
causes at law near the principal gate of the city. An accused bore upon 
his breast, or shoulder, the complaint against him. The writer not only 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 25 

Then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder-blade, 
And mine arm be broken from the bone. 

If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me. 

Or elated myself when evil overtook him 

(In truth. I have not suffered my mouth to sin, 

Xor wished a curse to his soul), 

If the men of my tent said not, 

'• Who can find one that hath not been satisfied from his 

meat V 
The stranger did not lodge in the street ; 
But I opened my doors to the traveller. 

Oh that I had one to hear me. that the Almighty would 

judge ! 
Here is my pledge (signature), 

Would that my accuser would write out his complaint ! 
Surely I would carry it on my shoulder, 
And bind it upon me as a crown. 
I would declare to my accuser the number of trusts I have 

filled, 
As a prince I would enter his presence. 

If my land cry against me, and the furrows thereof complain 

(weep together), 
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without return, 
Or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life, 
Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and noxious weeds instead 

of barley. 



THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. 

(About 710 B.C. See Rullin, vol. i. p. 141. Kings, Book II. chapter xii.) 

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 

demands a full trial and examination of his discharge of duty as a good 
citizen, but puts in evidence his general character and the offices he has 
held, especially his fairness when acting officially in the gate. 



26 PATRIOTIC READER. 

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is gi'een, 
That host, with their banners, at sunset were seen ; 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 
That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strewn. 

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed ; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still! 

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide, 
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride, 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. 

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail ; 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown. 

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal ; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord ! 

George Gordon Noel (Lord Byron). 



THE OVERTHROW OP BELSHAZZAR. 
(About 538 B.C. See Eollin, vol. i. p. 130. Book of Daniel, chapter vi.) 

Belshazzar is king ! Belshazzar is lord ! 
And a thousand dark nobles all bend at his board : 
Fruits glisten, flowers blossom, meats steam, and a flood 
Of the wine that man loveth runs redder than blood; 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 27 

"Wild dancers are there, and a riot of mirth, 

And the beauty that maddens the passions of earth ; 

And the crowds all shout, 

Till the vast roofs ring, 
"All praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king I" 

"Bring forth," cries the monarch, "the vessels of gold 
Which my father tore down from the temples of old : 
Bring forth ; and we'll drink, while the trumpets are blown, 
To the gods of bright silver, of gold, and of stone : 
Bring forth !" — and before him the vessels all shine, 
And he bows unto Baal, and he drinks the dark wine ; 

While the trumpets bray, 

And the cymbals ring, 
" Praise, praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king !" 

Now, what cometh ? — look, look ! — Without menace, or call, 

Who writes, with the lightning's bright hand, on the wall? 

What pierceth the king, like the point of a dart ? 

What drives the bold blood from his cheek to his heart ? 

" Chaldeans ! magicians ! the letters expound !" 

They are read ; — and Belshazzar is dead on the ground ! 

Hark ! — the Persian is come, 

On a conqueror's wing, 
And a Mede's on the throne of Belshazzar the king ! 

Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). 



THE PATRIOTIC MACCABEES. 

Between the closing of the Old Testament and the opening 
of the New lies a space of about four hundred years. It was 
a long, weary time of oppressions and misfortunes ; but it is 
lighted up by one of the noblest incidents of history, the 
struggle for independence under the heroic Judas Maccabeus, 

Judea, first a province of Persia, and then of Alexander's 
vast empire, enjoying peace and prosperity, fell to Syria at his 
death. The Syrian kings, essentially Greek, — a Greek debased 



28 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

in language, fashions, and religion, — sought to reduce their new 
subjects, the Jews, to the same Greek ways. A party, called 
Sadducees, favored the court, while a sect of Jewish Puritans 
called Separatists, the historical Pharisees, were zealous mono- 
theists, and opposed the new ways and manners. Still, Greek 
dress and methods so prevailed at Jerusalem that it seemed as 
if the simple Jewish worship of one God, with its sturdy moral 
law, would silently fade away. The Syrian kings, to hasten the 
process by force, even inflicted death for the circumcision of a 
child, or the observance of the Sabbath. The people were 
forced to eat swine's flesh, and, at last, swine were driven into 
the temple and their blood was sprinkled upon the Jewish Scrip- 
tures, wherever they were found. This stirred the people to a 
frenzy of national feeling and open revolt. 

Twenty miles from Jerusalem, on a rocky hill-side, in the vil- 
lage of Modin, dwelt the aged patriarch Mattathias and five 
strong sons. Here the Syrian officers erected a Greek altar and 
ordered all to sacrifice. The aged Mattathias not only refused, 
but slew the officer, as well as a renegade Jew who came to the 
altar, destroyed the altar itself, and in an hour had chased the 
Greeks from the village. The great Maccabean movement once 
begun, numbers joined Mattathias and his sons in the mountains, 
where they took refuge, and Judas, the ablest and bravest of 
them, surnamed " Maccab." the Hammer, the hammer of the Gen- 
tiles, became their leader. A thousand of the patriots were slaugh- 
tered on one Sabbath, when they would not lift a weapon; but 
thenceforth they fought, Sabbath or no Sabbath, with ever-in- 
creasing desperation. It is simply amazing to read what they 
accomplished. The great Syrian empire was combined against 
Judea, which was but some thirty miles square. Again and 
again Judas fell like a thunder-bolt against their armies and 
routed them. At last, forty thousand foot with seven thousand 
horse, under three generals, accompanied with Syrian slave- 
merchants having their gold and silver ready for purchase of 
the Hebrew prisoners, enforced a crisis. In the spirit of Gideon 
at an earlier time, Judas bade all of his men who were fearful 
to go home, and but three thousand remained. By a quick 
night march he surprised and captured the main body, seized 
their camp and immense spoil, and then, reinforced by gathering 



HEBREW AND RELATED NATIONS. 29 

numbers, and inspired by the war-cry "Eleazar, the help of God !" 
overwhelmed the Greeks and Syrians, and for two years the 
Jews remained quietly masters of their country. 

Then came the restoration of the temple, which was in ruins, 
with altar broken, strewed with polluting filth, and the courts 
overgrown with brush. It was a mighty work to purify it all ; 
but slowly all was done, and, for a whole week, illuminations, 
songs, and thank-offerings marked the feast of dedication, which 
was to be one of their gladdest yearly festivals. 

A brief truce ensued, for independence had yet to be won. 
Within three years an army of one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand men, with elephants, was on its way to crush the national 
party. Eleazar, the brother of Judas, sacrificed his life to show 
how the dreaded elephants might be destroyed ; but the little 
army of Judas, defeated, fled to Jerusalem and took refuge in 
the fortified temple. Then came one of those surprises of Provi- 
dence, such as had from time to time in their past history given 
to the Jews their indomitable confidence. The Syrian general, 
advised of disturbance at home, on a pledge of the ordinary 
tribute of subject peoples, left them free to carry out their own 
laws and religion, and withdrew his army from the land. 

The clouds had cleared, and Jewish nationality was saved. 
And still there were years of struggle. Traitors at home, and 
enemies at the Syrian Court, brought other armies against the 
new independency. Upon the first, Judas fell in his old dreaded 
way, lying in ambush with a thousand warriors, and once more 
the country is saved. With the second invasion came disaster. 
In spite of divisions in the national party, Judas, with eight 
hundred faithful warriors, attacking with the old courage, " fight- 
ing with their hands and praying with their hearts," as the 
chronicles tell, fought a whole day in vain, and, alas, Judas 
Maccabeus was among the slain. 

For a moment it seemed as if all was over ; but Judas had 
breathed a spirit into his people which was indomitable. Com- 
pelled once more to fly to caves and mountains, they chose his 
brother for their captain, and when he was slain, Simon, the 
last survivor, took up the blood-stained mantle of leadership. 
And so, by arms, and then by policy, they kept the nation from 
perishing, until the last of the brethren, 142 B.C., saw Jerusalem 



30 PATRIOTIC READER. 

clear of its foreign garrison, and the little Jewish nation once 
more established in acknowledged independence. Sixty years 
passed by, when conquering Korae made of Judea a Eoman 
province. But those sixty years were enough to gather the 
national and religious life of the Jews into new action and 
intensity which were to leave an indelible influence upon the 
world ever after. 

Brooke Herford. 



THE HEBREW MINSTREL'S LAMENT. 

From the hills of the west, as the sun's setting beam 
Cast his last ray of glory o'er Jordan's lone stream, 
While his fast-falling tears with its waters were blent, 
Thus poured a poor minstrel his saddened lament : 

" Awake, harp of Judah, that slumbering hast hung 

On the willows that weep where thy prophets have sung ; 

Once more wake for Judah thy wild notes of woe, 

Ere the hand that now strikes thee lies mouldering and lo\ 

" Ah, where are the choirs of the glad and the free 
That woke the loud anthem responsive to thee, 
When the daughters of Salem broke forth in the song, 
While Tabor and Hermon its echoes prolong ? 

" And where are the mighty, who went forth in pride 
To the slaughter of kings, with their ark at their side ? 
They sleep, lonely stream, with the sands of thy shore, 
And the war-trumpet's blast shall awake them no more. 

" O Judah, a lone scattered remnant remain, 

To sigh for the graves of their fathers in vain, 

And to turn toward thy land with a tear-brimming eye, 

And a prayer that the advent of Shiloh be nigh. 

" No beauty in Sharon, — on Carmel no shade, — 
Our vineyards are wasted, our altars decayed; 
And the heel of the heathen, insulting, has trod 
On the bosoms that bled for their country and God." 

N. E. Mag., 1832, p. 60, " Z. 



PART II. 

GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The leaven of pure patriotism, as the basis of true national 
success, was the energizing force which gave to the best states- 
men, leaders, and teachers of Greece and Rome their exemplary 
place in human history. The grandeur of Homer's verse, writ- 
ten nearly three thousand years ago, had its true magic, " its 
best omen," in " Our Country's Cause," as much as in the phys- 
ical details of heroic battle. The voluntary martyrdom of Leon- 
idas, b.c. 492, and the contests between the small Grecian States, 
were marked by a patriotic ardor which was never wholly sup- 
pressed by the personal uses to which many rulers of Sparta 
and Athens made the national spirit contributive. Herodotus, 
born about 484 b.c, recites the argument of Otares before King 
Darius, in behalf of a Republic, as the best form of government, 
the one most prolific in patriotic sentiment. Lucius Quinctius 
(Cincinnatus), drawn from his farm into the public service about 
458 b.c, deplored the deadly nature of discord at home, as fatal 
to a disinterested devotion to country ; and neatly at the same 
time Canuleius secured the annulment of restraints upon ple- 
beian advancement. 

In the contest of Demosthenes and iEschines for the crown 
of oratorical supremacy, B.C. 320, each alike advocated " popular 
suffrage," " veneration for the fathers," and a just recognition of 
"true virtue as the conditions of a happy people." In the same 
period Socrates " invoked the memory of the fathers," and a 
conscious " responsibility to some invisible and holy divinity," 
as his chief allies in teaching the law of true love of country to 
youth. In 216 b.c, Paulus Emilius enjoined confidence in " well- 

31 



32 PATRIOTIC READER. 

selected representatives as the hopeful basis of national glory;" 
and Scipio, Gracchus, and Marius declared "popular rights to 
be superior to titled privilege," " merit to be in place of birth," 
"wealth to be inferior to personal excellence," and that these 
principles alone secured true national strength. 

The contest between Home and Carthage, in the second cen- 
tury B.C., was brilliant in its sacred heroism, notwithstanding 
the personal ambitions of Hannibal and Scipio ; and the patriot- 
ism of Regulus (225 B.C.) is immortal. Even the gladiator Spar- 
tacus developed out of his youthful endurance of outrage the 
spirit of a genuine aspiration for freedom and national inde- 
pendence. 

The closing century b.c, through Cicero, Cato, Caesar, Brutus, 
Antony, Cassius, Catiline, and their contemporaries, evoked ut- 
terances which should not be wholly lost to the present gen- 
eration, if only to assure them that devotion to country has 
always been the true fulcrum on which to rest effort for national 
happiness and true liberty. 

In modern times, the genius of Shakespeare and Addison, 
and the delineations of Hugo, Croly, Ames, Sargent, and others, 
have imparted fresh vividness to the scenes and utterances of 
classic expression, while Bulwer and Miss Mitford have given 
to the year 1347 a.d., and the career of Rienzi, Last of the 
Tribunes, the cast of a grand patriotic tragedy. If Byron has 
imparted to modern Greece the air of struggle to regenerate 
the glories of a buried past, the monuments to Dante, at Flor- 
ence and Ravenna, are equally expressive of the devotion of 
Italy to the memory of one whose whole being was the living 
principle of patriotic love. 



'THE BEST OMEN OUR COUNTRY'S CAUSE. 
From Homer's Iliad, Book XII. 

When flying eagle, from the skies above, 
Dropped from his loosened talons, struggling yet, 
A serpent great, between the Trojan lines, 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 33 

And, shuddering, they beheld the prodigy, 

Blood-stained, spotted, within their opened ranks 

(Dread messenger of iEgis-bearing Jove), 

Polydorus to gallant Hector spoke, 

As, standing near, he augured ill for Troy : 

" Hector, ever chiding me in councils, 

E'en though my words proposed are ever wise ; 

Too proud to brook that any cross thy path, 

By sage advice, no less than active war, 

I will again speak forth, as suits me best : 

Go not to fight the Grecians for their ships, 

For thus I venture to divine the end. 

" An eagle dropped his prey between the ranks, 
JNTor bore it to his hungry, waiting brood ; 
So shall we leave our Trojan dead behind, 
Slain by the Grecians in their fleet's defence. 
He who has skill this omen to unfold, 
Would thus its word declare and men obey." 

To him the stern, erest-tossiug Hector spoke, 
With quick reply and solemn mien : 

" Thy words, 
Indeed, are hateful to my earnest will ; 
Beside, thou knowest, counsels better far 
Are in thy power to give, if give thou wilt ; 
And yet, if serious thou in thy advice, 
The gods have robbed thee of thy judgment sound, 
To bid me mind the wide-expanding birds, 
Whose flight to right or left, to rising sun 
Or to the darkening west, I care not for. 
Let us obey the will of mighty Jove, 
Who mortals and immortals rules alike. 
One augury, alone, my mind can reach, — 
The best omen is, 'to fight, for country's cause!' 
Why dost thou dread the battle shock of war ? 
Forsooth, if all thy comrades shall be slain, 
Thy life will not be lost, nor courage thine 
Suffice to bear thee into heated fight ; 
3 



34 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Yet dare withhold thy presence from the test, 
Or by dissuading word keep back a man 
Who seeks to do a soldier's worthy part, 
Then by this spear, and stricken by my hand, 
Thou shalt as quickly die." 



SELF-SACRIFICE FOR COUNTRY. 

Translated from the tragedy " Leonidas," of Michel Pichat, by Epes 
Sargent, and used by permission. Theme, " Address to the Three Hundred" 
(b.c. 492). The monument to commemorate the desperate resistance of 
Leonidas to the mighty army of Xerxes bore the inscription, " Go, traveller, 
tell at Lacedtemon that we fell here in obedience to her laws." 

Ye men of Sparta, listen to the hope with which the Gods 
inspire Leonidas! Consider how largely our death may re- 
dound to the glory and benefit of our country. Against this bar- 
barian king, who, in his battle-array, reckons as many nations 
as our ranks do soldiei's, what could united Greece effect ? In 
this emergency there is need that some unexpected power should 
interpose itself; that a valor and devotion, unknown hitherto, 
even to Sparta, should strike, amaze, confound, this ambitious 
despot! From our blood, here freely shed to-day, shall this 
moral power, this sublime lesson of patriotism, proceed. To 
Greece it shall teach the secret of her strength ; to the Persians, 
the certainty of their weakness. Before our scarred and bleed- 
ing bodies we shall see the great king grow pale at his own 
victory and recoil affrighted. Or, should he succeed in forcing 
the pass of Thermopylae, he will tremble to learn that, in march- 
ing upon our cities, he will find ten thousand, after us, equally- 
prepared for death. Ten thousand, do I say? Oh, the swift 
contagion of a generous enthusiasm ! Our example shall make 
Greece all fertile in heroes. An avenging cry shall follow the 
cry of her affliction. Country! Independence! From the Mes- 
senian hills to the Hellespont every heart shall respond ; and a 
hundred thousand heroes, with one sacred accord, shall arm 
themselves in emulation of our unanimous death. These rocks 
shall give back the echo of their oaths. Then shall our little 
band, the brave three hundred, from the world of shades, revisit 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 35 

the scene; behold the haughty Xerxes, a fugitive, recross the 
Hellespont in a frail bark ; while Greece, after eclipsing the 
most glorious of her exploits, shall hallow a new Olympus in 
the mound that covers our tombs. 

Yes, fellow-soldiers, history and posterity shall consecrate our 
ashes. Wherever courage is honored, through all time, shall 
Thermopylae and the Spartan three hundred be remembered. 
Ours shall be an immortality such as no human glory has yet 
attained. And when ages shall have swept by, and Sparta's last 
hour shall have come, then, even in her ruins, shall she be 
eloquent. Tyrants shall turn away from them appalled ; but 
the heroes of liberty — the poets, the sages, the historians of all 
time — shall invoke and bless the memory of the gallant three 
hundred of Leonidas ! 

Michel Pichat. 



THE SPARTANS' MARCH. 

'Twas morn upon the Grecian hills, where peasants dressed the 

vines ; 
Sunlight was on Cithaeron's rills, Arcadia's rocks and pines, 
And brightly, through his reeds and flowers, Eurotas wandered 

by, 

When a sound arose from Sparta's towers, of solemn harmony. 
Was it the hunter's choral strain, to the woodland goddess 

poured ? 
Did virgins' hands, in Pallas' fane, strike the full-sounding 

chord ? 

But helms were glancing on the stream ; spears ranged in close 
array ; 

And shields flung back a glorious beam to the morn of a fearful 
day; 

And the mountain-echoes of the land swelled through the deep- 
blue sky, 

While, to soft strains, moved forth a band of men that moved to 
die. 



36 PATRIOTIC READER. 

They marched not with the trumpet's blast, nor bade the horn 
peal out, 

And the laurel-groves, as on they passed, rung with no battle- 
shout. 

They asked no clarion's voice to fire their souls with an impulse 

high, 
But the Dorian reed, and the Spartan lyre, for the sons of 

liberty ; 
And still sweet flutes, their path around, sent forth jEolian 

breath ; 
They needed not a sterner sound to marshal them for death. 
So moved they calmly to the field, thence never to return, 
Save bringing back the Spartan shield, or on it proudly borne. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans. 



THE DEATH OP LEONIDAS. 

It was the wild midnight, — a storm was in the sky, 
The lightning gave its light, and the thunder echoed by; 
The torrent swept the glen, the ocean lashed the shore, — 
Then rose the Spartan men, to make their bed in gore. 

Swift from the deluged ground, three hundred took the shield, 

Then, silent, gathered round the leader of the field. 

He spoke no warrior-word, he bade no trumpet blow ; 

But the signal thunder roared, and they rushed upon the foe. 

The fiery element showed, with one mighty gleam, 
Rampart and flag and tent, like the spectres of a dream. 
All up the mountain-side, all down the woody vale, 
All by the rolling tide, waved the Persian banners pale. 

And King Leonidas, among the slumbering band, 
Sprang foremost from the pass, like the lightning's living brand. 
Then double darkness fell, and the forest ceased to moan, 
But there came a clash of steel, and a distant dying groan. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 37 

Anon, a trumpet blew, and a fiery sheet burst high, 

That o'er the midnight threw a blood-red canopy. 

A host glared on the hill; a host glared by the bay; 

But the Greeks rushed onward still, like leopards in their play. 

The air was all a yell, and the earth was all a flame, 
Where the Spartans' bloody steel on the silken turbans came ; 
And still the Greeks rushed on, beneath the fiery fold, 
Till, like a rising sun, shone Xerxes' tent of gold. 

They found a royal feast, his midnight banquet, there ; 
And the treasures of the East lay beneath the Doric spear. 
Then sat to the repast the bravest of the brave ; 
That feast must be their last, that spot must be their grave. 

They pledged old Sparta's name, in cups of Syrian wine, 
And the warrior's deathless fame was sung in strains divine ; 
They took the rose-wreathed lyres from eunuch and from slave, 
And taught the languid wires the sounds that freedom gave. 

But now the morning star crowned GSta's twilight brow, 
And the Persian horn of war from the hill began to blow :■ 
Up rose the glorious rank, to Greece one cup poured high, 
Then, hand in hand, they drank — "To Immortality!" 

Fear on King Xerxes fell, when, like spirits from the tomb, 
With shout and trumpet-knell, he saw the warriors come ; 
But down swept all his power, with chariot and with chai'ge, 
Down poured the arrowy shower, till sank the Dorian targe. 

They marched within the tent, with all their strength unstrung ; 
To Greece one look they sent, then on high their torches flung ; 
To heaven the blaze uprolled like a mighty altar-fire ; 
And the Persians' gems and gold were the Grecians' funeral 
pyre. 

Their king sat on his throne, his captains by his side, 
While the flame rushed roaring on, and their prean loud replied. 
Thus fought the Greek of old ! Thus will he fight again ! 
Shall not the self-same mould bring forth the self-same men ? 

George Crolt. 



38 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE GREEKS' RETURN FROM BATTLE. 

Io ! they come, they come ! garlands for every shrine ! 

Strike lyres to greet them home ! bring roses, pour your wine ! 

Swell, swell the Dorian flute, through the blue, triumphant sky ! 

Let the cittern's tone salute the sons of victory ! 

AVith the offering of bright blood they have ransomed hearth 

and tomb, 
"Vineyard, and field, and flood. Io ! they come, they come ! 

Sing it where olives wave, and by the glittering sea. 
And o'er each hero's grave, sing, sing, the land is free ! 
Mark ye the flashing oars, and the spears that light the deep ! 
How the festal sunshine pours, where the lords of battle sweep ! 
Each hath brought back his shield ; maid, greet thy lover home ! 
Mother, from that proud field. Io ! thy son is come ! 

Who murmured of the dead ? Hush, boding voice ! AYe know 

That many a shining head lies in its glory low. 

Breathe not those names to-day! They shall have their praise 

ere long, 
And a power all hearts to sway, in ever-burning song. 
But now shed flowers, pour wine, to hail the conquerors home. 
Bring wreaths for every shrine. Io! they come, they come! 

Felicia Dorothea Hemaxs. 



A COUNTRY IMPERILLED BY DISCORD. 

The Roman historian Livy. introducing the protest of Consul Titus Quin- 
tius Capitolinus, B.C. 458, against the small jealousies and loea! discord which 
afflicted Rome at the time, adds, that •■ Moderation is so difficult in uphold- 
ing liberty that the very attempt to equalize rights leads men to raise them- 
selves at the expense of others, and. through fear of being imposed upon, do 
wrong themselves; as if it were necessary either to endure or commit injus- 
tice." The mortification of the consul that the city was actually harassed by 
enemies whom it could afi'ord to despise if local feuds were checked, is one 
of the best features of his patriotic appeal. 




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40 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the protection of your tribunes, and the privilege of appeal ; the 
patricians are subjected to the decrees of the Commons. Under 
pretence of equal and impartial laws, you have invaded our 
rights ; and we have suffered it, and we still suffer it. When 
shall we see an end of discord ? When shall we have one in- 
terest, and one common country? Victorious and triumphant, 
you show less temper than we under defeat. When you are to 
contend with us, you can seize the Aventine hill ; you can pos- 
sess yourselves of the Mons Sacer. The enemy is at our gates, 
the Esquiline is near being taken, and nobody stirs to hinder 
it! But against us you are valiant; against us you can arm 
with diligence. 

Come on, then ! besiege the senate-house, make a camp of 
the forum, fill the jails with our chief nobles; and when you 
have achieved these glorious exploits, then, at last, sally out 
at the Esquiline gate, with the same fierce spirit, against the 
enemy. Does your resolution fail you for this ? Go, then, and 
behold from our walls your lands ravaged, your houses plundered 
and in flames, the whole country laid waste with fire and sword. 
Have you anything here to repair these damages? Will the 
tribunes make up your losses to you ? They will give you 
words, as many as you please ; bring impeachments in abun- 
dance against the prime men in the state; heap laws upon 
laws; assemblies you shall have without end; but will any 
of you return the richer from those assemblies ? Extinguish, 

Romans, these fatal divisions ; generously break this cursed 
enchantment, which keeps you buried in a scandalous inaction. 
Open your eyes, and consider the management of those am- 
bitious men who, to make themselves powerful in their party, 
study nothing but how they may foment divisions in the com- 
monwealth. If 3"ou can but summon up your former courage, 
if you will now march out of Rome with your consuls, there 
is no punishment you can inflict, which I will not submit to, if 

1 do not, in a few days, drive those pillagers out of our ter- 
ritory. This terror of war, with which you seem so grievously 
struck, shall quickly be removed from Rome to their own cities. 

Titus Quiktius. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 41 



THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE UPHELD. 

Two years after the appeal of Titus Quintius had induced the citizens of 
Rome to unite and put to rout the threatening enemy, the old antagonism 
between the patricians and common people was revived, and Caius Canuleius, 
a tribune of the people, secured the passage of a law, respecting intermar- 
riage, which was intended to remove the obstacles to plebeian advancement. 
The proposition was also made to make the common people eligible to the 
consulship, regardless of birth. The result was that within a year tribunes 
were elected, with consular power. The impetuous appeal of Canuleius in 
favor of his proposed law is thus presented in " Sargent's Standard Speaker." 
(See also Livy, Book IV., chapter iii.) 

This is not the first time, O Romans, that patrician arrogance 
has denied to us the rights of a common humanity. What do 
we now demand ? First, the right of intermarriage ; and then, 
that the people may confer honors on whom they please. And 
why, in the name of Roman manhood, my countrymen, why 
should these poor boons be refused ? Why, for claiming them, 
was I near being assaulted, just now, in the senate-house ? Will 
the city no longer stand, will the empire be dissolved, because 
we claim the plebeians shall no longer be excluded from the con- 
sulship ? Truly these patricians will, by and by, begrudge us a 
participation in the light of day; they will be indignant that 
we breathe the same air ; that we share with them the faculty 
of speech ; that we wear the form of human beings. But I cry 
them mercy. They tell us that it is contrary to religion that a 
plebeian should be made consul ! The ancient religion of Rome 
forbids it ! Ah ! verily ? How will they reconcile this pretence to 
the facts ? Though not admitted to the archives, nor to the com- 
mentaries of the pontiffs, there are some notorious facts which, 
in common with the rest of the world, we well know. We 
know that there were kings before there were consuls in Rome. 
We know that consuls possess no prerogative, no dignity, not 
formerly inherent in kings. We know that Numa Pompilius 
was made king at Rome, who was not only not a patrician, but 
not even a citizen ; that Lucius Tarquinius, who was not even 
of Italian extraction, was made king ; that Servius Tullius, who 
was the son of a captive woman by an unknown father, was 
made king. And shall plebeians, who formerly were not ex- 



42 PATEIOTIC KEADEK. 

eluded from the throne, now, on the juggling plea of religious 
objection, be debarred from the consulship ? 

But it is not enough that the offices of the state are withheld 
from us. To keep pure their dainty blood, these patricians 
would prevent, by law, all intermarriage of members of their 
order with plebeians. Could there be a more marked indignity, 
a more humiliating insult, than this ? Why not legislate against 
our living in the same neighborhood, dwelling under the same 
skies, walking the same earth ? Ignominy not to be endured ! 
Was it for this we expelled kings ? Was it for this that we ex- 
changed one master for many? No. Let the rights we claim 
be admitted, or let the patricians fight the battles of the state 
themselves. Let the public offices be open to all ; let every in- 
vidious law in regard to marriage be abolished ; or, by the gods 
of our fathers, let there be no levy of troops to achieve victories 
in the benefits of which the people shall not most amply and 
equally partake ! 

Caius Canuleius. 



PERICLES AND ASPASIA. 

Plutarch says that " Pericles began his career as the leader of the demo- 
cratic party" (about 470 B.C.) ; " he kept the public good in his eye, pursued 
the straight path of honor, and, with admirable dignity of manners, acquired 
a force and sublimity of sentiment superior to all demagogues." Aspasia, his 
wife (a foreigner, and therefore not legally a wife), is described by Madame 
de Stael " as a model of female loveliness, such as Alexander was of heroism." 
She survived her husband, dying about 429 B.C. ; but a just record, however 
brief, of true patriotism, could not neglect a tribute to their memory. 

This was the ruler of the land, 

When Athens was the land of fame ; 

This was the light that led the band, 
When each was like a living flame ; 

The centre of earth's noblest ring, 

Of more than men, the more than king. 

Yet not by fetter, nor by spear, 
His sovereignty was held, or won ; 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 43 

Feared, but alone as freemen fear ; 

Loved, but as freemen love, alone ; 
He waved the sceptre o'er his kind 
By nature's first great title — mind. 

Eesistless words were on his tongue ; 

Then eloquence first flashed below ; 
Full-armed, to life, the portent sprung, 

Minerva, from the thunderous brow ; 
And his the sole, the sacred hand 
That shook her aegis o'er the land. 

Then, throned, immortal, by his side, 

A woman sits, with eye sublime, — 
Aspasia, — all his spirit's bride ; 

But if their solemn love were crime, 
Pity the beauty and the sage, 
Their crime was in that darkened age. 

He perished, but his wreath was won ; 

He perished in his height of fame ; 
Then sank the cloud on Athens' sun, 

Yet still she conquered in his name. 
Filled with his soul, she could not die : 
Her conquest was posterity. 

Walter Savage Landor. 



VIRTUE BEFORE RICHES. 

Socrates before his accusers and judges, B.C. 400. 

I am accused of corrupting the youth, and of instilling dan- 
gerous principles into them, as well in regard to the worship of 
the gods as the rulers of government. You know, Athenians, 
I never made it my profession to teach ; nor can envy, however 
violent against me, reproach me with having ever sold my in- 
structions. I have an undeniable evidence for me in this respect, 
which is my poverty. 

My whole employment is to persuade the young and old 
against too much love for the body, for riches, and all other 



44 PATRIOTIC READER. 

precarious things, of whatever nature they be, and against 
too little regard for the soul, which ought to be the object of 
their affection. For I incessantly urge you, that virtue does not 
proceed from riches, but, on the contrary, riches from virtue ; 
and that all the other goods of human life, as well public as 
private, have their sources in the same principle. 

If to speak in this manner be to corrupt youth, I confess, 
Athenians, that I am guilty, and deserve to be punished. If 
what I say be not true, it is most easy to convict me of my 
falsehood. I see here a great number of my disciples ; they have 
only to appear. But perhaps the reserve and consideration for 
a master who has instructed them will prevent them from de- 
claring against me. At least their fathers, brothers, and uncles 
cannot, as good relations and good citizens, dispense with their 
not standing forth to demand vengeance against the corrupter 
of their sons, brothers, and nephews. But these are the persons 
who take upon them my defence, and interest themselves in the 
success of my cause. 

Pass on me what sentence you please, Athenians ; but I can 
neither repent nor change my conduct. . . . 

Should you resolve to acquit me for the future, I should not 
hesitate to make answer, Athenians, I honor and love you, but 
I shall choose rather to obey God than you; and to my latest 
breath shall never renounce my philosophy, nor cease to exhort 
and improve you according to my custom. . . . 

Do not take it ill, I beseech you, if I speak my thoughts 
without disguise, and with truth and freedom. Every man who 
would generously oppose a whole people, either amongst us or 
elsewhere, and who inflexibly applies himself to prevent the 
violation of the laws and the practice of iniquity in a govern- 
ment, will never do so long with impunity. It is absolutely 
necessary for him who would contend for justice, if he has any 
thoughts of living, to remain in a private station and never to 
have any share in public affairs. 

For the rest, Athenians, if, in extreme danger as I now am, 
I do not imitate the behavior of those who, upon less emer- 
gencies, have implored and supplicated their judges with teai-s, 
and have brought forth their children, relations, and friends, it 
is not through pride or obstinacy, or any contempt for you, but 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 45 

solely for your honor and for that of the whole city. At my 
age, and with the reputation, true or false, which I have, would 
it be consistent for me, after all the lessons I have given upon 
the contempt of death, to be afraid of it myself, and to belie in 
my last action all the principles and sentiments of my past life ? 
I am more convinced of the existence of God than my ac- 
cusers; and so convinced that I abandon myself to God and 
you, that you may judge of me as you shall think it best. 

Socrates. 



POPULAR VIGILANCE THE BULWARK OP THE 
CONSTITUTION. 

(b.c. 330.) 

You ask, Athenians, " What real advantage have we derived 
from the speeches of Demosthenes? He rises when he thinks 
proper ; he deafens us with his harangues ; he declaims against 
the degeneracy of present times ; he tells us of the virtues of 
our ancestors ; he transports us by his airy extravagance ; he 
puffs up our vanity ; and then sits down." 

But could these, my speeches, once gain an effectual influence 
upon your minds, so great would be the advantages conferred 
upon my country that, were I to attempt to speak them, they 
would appear to many as visionary. Yet still I must assume 
the merit of doing some service by accustoming you to hear 
salutary truths. 

And if your counsellors be solicitous for any point of moment 
to their country, let them first cure your ears, for they are dis- 
tempered, and this, from the inveterate habit of listening to 
falsehoods, to everything rather than your real interests. 

There is no man who dares openly and boldly to declare in 
what case our constitution is subverted. But I shall declare it. 
When you, Athenians, become a helpless rabble, without conduct, 
without property, without arms, without order, without una- 
nimity, when neither your general nor any other person hath 
the least respect for your decrees, when no man dares to inform 
you of this your condition, to urge the necessary reformation, 



46 PATRIOTIC READER. 

much less to exert his effort to effect it, then is your constitution 
subverted. And this is now the case; 

But, oh, my fellow-citizens ! a language of a different nature 
hath poured in upon us ; false, and highly dangerous to the state. 
Such is that assertion, that in your tribunals is j-our great 
security, that your right of suffrage is the real bulwark of the 
constitution. That these tribunals are our common resource in 
all private contests, I acknowledge. 

But it is by arms we are to subdue our enemies, by arms we 
are to defend our state. It is not by our decrees that we can 
conquer. To those, on the contrary, who fight our battles with 
success, to these we owe the power of decreeing, of transacting 
all our affairs, without control or danger. In arms, then, let us 
be terrible, in our judicial transactions humane. 

If it be observed that these sentiments are more elevated than 
might be expected from my character, the observation, I confess, 
is just. Whatever is said about a state of such dignity, upon 
affairs of such importance, should appear more elevated than 
any character. To your worth should it correspond, not to that 
of the speaker. 

And now I shall inform you why none of those who stand 
high in your esteem speak in the same manner. The candidates 
for office and employment go about soliciting your voices, the 
slaves of popular favor. To gain the rank of general is each 
man's great concern, not to fill this station with true, manlike 
intrepidity. 

Courage, if he possess it, he deems unnecessary, for thus he 
reasons : he has the honor, the renown, of this city to support 
him ; he finds himself free from oppression and control ; he 
needs but to amuse you with fair hopes ; and thus he secures a 
kind of inheritance in your emoluments. And he reasons truly. 

But do you yourselves once assume the conduct of your own 
affairs, and then, as you take an equal share of duty, so shall 
you acquire an equal share of glory. Now your ministers and 
public speakers, without one thought of directing you faithfully 
to your true interest, resign themselves entirely to these gen- 
erals. Formerly you divided into classes, in order to raise the 
supplies ; now the business of the classes is to gain the manage- 
ment of public affairs. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 47 

The orator is the leader; the general seconds his attempts; 
the Three Hundred are the assistants on each side ; and all others 
choose their parties and serve to fill up the several factions. And 
you see the consequences. 

This man gains a statue ; this amasses a fortune ; one or two 
command the state ; while you sit down unconcerned, witnesses 
of their success, and, for an uninterrupted course of ease and 
indolence, give up to them those great and glorious advantages 
which really belong to you. 

Demosthenes. 



POPULAR RIGHTS ABOVE! PRIVILEGE. 

Address of Caius Gracchus* to the Romans (b.c. 128). 

It is now ten years, O Eomans, since my brother, Tiberius 
Gracchus, was elected your tribune. In what a condition did 
he find you! The great mass of the people pined in abject 
poverty! Thousands, eager to work, without a clod of dirt 
they could call their own, actually wanted daily bread. A few 
men, calling themselves "the aristocracy," having enormous 
wealth, gotten by extortion and fraud, lorded it over you with 
remorseless rigor. The small land proprietors had disappeared. 
Mercenary idlers, their fingers actually itching for bribes; 
tricky demagogues, insatiate usurers, desperate gamblers, all 
the vilest abettors of lawless power, had usurped the places 
of men who had been the glory and strength of the Eepublic. 
What a state of things ! infinite wretchedness to the millions, 
but riches and prodigality to the hundreds. The rich could 
plunder the poor at will, for your rulers and judges were cor- 
rupt, cowardly, and venal, and money could buy them to do 
anything. Bribery at elections, open, unblushing, flagrant, kept 

* The mother of Caius and Tiberius Gracchus, a daughter of Scipio 
Africanus, married Sempronius Gracchus. When a Campanian lady, boast- 
ing of her jewels, asked to see those of Cornelia, she presented her sons, with 
the simple answer, "These are the only jewels of which I can boast." A 
statue to her memory bears the inscription, " Cornelia mater Gracchorum." 



48 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the very men in power who were sucking the life-blood of the 
country. Do I exaggerate? Oh, no! It is too faint a pic- 
ture of the woe and degradation of the people, and of the 
rapacity, arrogance, and depravity of their oppressors. 

At such a time my brother, Tiberius Gracchus, presented him- 
self, and Avas elected tribune. His heart had been wrung by 
your distresses. He resolved to rescue the oppressed and down- 
trodden people. He defied your tyrants. He swiftly ended the 
fraud which had robbed you of your lands. No shelter of 
wealth, no rank or place, could shield from his fiery wrath. In 
vain did they hurl at him the cheap words "demagogue," " fac- 
tionist," "anarchist." There was that truth in his tones, that 
simplicity and nobility in his bearing, that gentle dignity in his 
very rage at the wrongs done, that carried conviction of his 
sincerity to every heart. 

Oh ! how pale with anger were those " aristocrats," as they 
styled themselves, as their power melted away, as they saw the 
people resume their rights under the resistless eloquence of that 
young, devoted spirit ! But he must be silenced, this audacious 
tribune, this incorruptible critic of the privileged class, this 
friend and saviour of the people. A bloody revenge must quiet 
their fears lest they should lose their illegal plunder. 

Alas! the foul deed was done! In a tumult instigated for 
the purpose, your tribune, champion of the poor, and friend of 
the friendless, was slain. Even his bod)' - was refused to his 
friends; but the sacred Tiber was made more sacred by re- 
ceiving to its bosom all of Tiberius Gracchus that could perish. 

And now, men of Rome, if you ask', as those who fear me do 
ask, why I left my quaestorship in Sardinia without leave of the 
Senate, here is my answer : I had to come without leave or not 
at all. Why, then, did I come at all ? To offer myself for the 
office my brother held, and for serving you in which he was 
brutally murdered. I have come to vindicate his memory, to 
re-inaugurate Ins policy, to strip the privileged class of its 
privileges, to restore popular rights, to lift up the crushed, to 
break down the oppressor. 

And, O Romans. 1 come with clean hands, with no coffers 
tilled with gold wrenched from desolated provinces and a ruined 
people. I can offer no bribe for votes. I come back poor as I 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 49 

went ; poor, indeed, in all but hatred of tyrants and zeal to serve 
my country. Shall I be your tribune ? 

Caius Gracchus. 



ROME AND CARTHAGE LOCKED IN STRIPE. 

(Translated by Epes Sargent.) 

Rome and Carthage ! Behold them drawing near for the 
struggle that is to shake the world ! Carthage, the metropolis 
of Africa, is the mistress of oceans, of kingdoms, and of nations ; 
a magnificent city, burdened with opulence, radiant with the 
strange arts and trophies of the East. She is at the acme 
of her civilization. She can mount no higher. Any change 
now must be a decline. Rome is comparatively poor. She has 
seized all within her grasp, but rather from the lust of conquest 
than to fill her own coffers. She is demi-barbarous, and has her 
education and her fortune both to make. All is before her, 
nothing behind. For a time these two nations exist in view of 
each other. The one reposes in the noontide of her splendor ; 
the other waxes strong in the shade. But, little by little, air 
and space are wanting to each for her development. Rome be- 
gins to perplex Carthage, and Carthage is an eyesore to Rome. 
Seated on opposite banks of the Mediterranean, the two cities 
look each other in the face. The sea no longer keeps them apart. 
Europe and Africa weigh upon each other. Like two clouds 
surcharged with electricity, they impend. With their contact 
must come the thunder-shock. 

The catastrophe of this stupendous drama is at hand. What 
actors are met! Two races, that of merchants and mariners, 
that of laborers and soldiers ; two nations, the one dominant by 
gold, the other by steel ; two republics, the one theocratic, the 
other aristocratic. Rome and Carthage ! Rome with her army, 
Carthage with her fleet ; Carthage old, rich, and crafty, Rome 
young, poor, and robust; the past and the future; the spirit of 
discovery, and the spirit of conquest ; the genius of commerce, 
the demon of war ; the East and the South on one side, the 
West and the North on the other ; in short, two worlds, — the 
4 



50 PATRIOTIC READER. 

civilization of Africa, and the civilization of Europe. They 
measure each other from head to foot. They gather all their 
forces. Gradually the war kindles. The world takes fire. 
These colossal powers are locked in deadly strife. Carthage 
has crossed the Alps; Eome, the seas. The two nations, per- 
sonified in two men, Hannibal and Scipio, close with each other, 
wrestle, and grow infuriate. The duel is desperate. It is a 
struggle for life. Eome wavers. She utters that cry of anguish, 
Hannibal at the gates! But she rallies, collects all her strength 
for one last, appalling effort, throws herself upon Carthage, and 
sweeps her from the face of the earth. 

Victor Hugo. 



MERIT BEFORE BIRTH. 

Speech of Caius Marius to the Romans (B.C. 157). 

It is but too common, my countrymen, to observe a material 
difference between the behavior of those who stand candidates 
for places of power and trust, before and after their obtaining 
them. They solicit them in one manner, and execute them in 
another. 

They set out with a great appearance of activity, humility, 
and moderation ; but they quickly fall into sloth, pride, and 
avarice. It is undoubtedly no easy matter to discharge, to gen- 
eral satisfaction, the duty of a supreme commander in trouble- 
some times. 

You have committed to my conduct the war against Jugur- 
tha. The patricians are offended at this. But where would be 
the wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honor- 
able body ? a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of 
innumerable statues, but — of no experience ! 

What service would his long line of dead ancestors, or his 
multitude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of 
battle? What could such a general do, but, in his trepidatiou 
and inexperience, have recourse to some inferior commander 
for direction in difficulties to which he was not himself equal? 
Thus your patrician general would in fact have a general over 
him ; so that the acting commander would still be a plebeian. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 51 

So true is this, my countrymen, that I have, myself, known 
those who have been chosen consuls begin then to read the his- 
tory of their own country, of which till that time they were 
totally ignorant ; that is, they first obtained the employment, 
and then bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary 
for the proper discharge of it. 

I submit to your judgment, Komans, on which side the advan- 
tage lies, when a comparison is made between patrician haughti- 
ness and plebeian experience. The very actions which they 
have only read, I have partly seen, and partly myself achieved. 
What they know by reading, I know by action. They are 
pleased to slight my mean birth j I despise their mean char- 
acters. 

Want of birth and of fortune is the objection against me ; 
want of personal worth, against them. But are not all men of 
the same species ? What can make a difference between one man 
and another but the endowments of the mind ? For my part, 
I shall always look upon the bravest man as the noblest man. 

If the patricians have reason to despise me, let them likewise 
despise their ancestors, whose nobility was the fruit of their 
virtue. Do they envy the honors bestowed upon me ? Let them 
envy, likewise, my labors, my abstinence, and the dangers I have 
undergone for my country, by which I have acquired them. 

But those worthless men lead such a life of inactivity, as if 
they despised any honors you can bestow ; while they aspire to 
honors, as if they had deserved tbem by the most industrious 
virtue. They lay claim to the rewards of activity for their 
having enjoyed the pleasures of luxury. Yet none can be more 
lavish than they are in praise of their ancestors. 

And they imagine they honor themselves by celebrating their 
forefathers, whereas they do the very contrary ; for as much as 
their ancestors were distinguished for their virtues, so much are 
they disgraced by their vices. 

The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upon their pos 
terity ; but it only serves to show what the descendants are 
It alike exhibits to public view their degeneracy and their 
worth. I own I cannot boast of the deeds of my forefathers 
but I hope I may answer the cavils of the patricians by stand 
ing up in defence of what I have myself done. 



52 PATEIOTIC READER. 

Observe now, my countrymen, the injustice of the patricians. 
They arrogate to themselves honors on account of exploits done 
by their forefathers, whilst they will not allow me due praise 
for performing the very same sort of actions in my own person. 

He has no statues, they cry, of his family. He can trace no 
venerable line of ancestors. What then ? Is it matter of more 
praise to disgrace one's illustrious ancestors than to become 
illustrious by one's own good behavior? 

What if I can show no statues of my family ? I can show 
the standards, the armor, and the trappings which I have my- 
self taken from the vanquished. I can show the scars of those 
wounds which I have received by facing the enemies of my 
country. 

These are my statues. These are the honors I boast of. Not 
left me by inheritance, as theirs ; but earned by toil, by absti- 
nence, by valor ; amidst clouds of dust and seas of blood ; scenes 
of action, where those effeminate patricians, who endeavor, by 
indirect means, to depreciate me in your esteem, have never 

dared to show their faces. 

Caius Marius. 



THE DIGNITY OP CITIZENSHIP. 

Part of Cicero's Oration against Verres. 

What punishment ought to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and 
wicked praetor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, 
within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death 
of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius 
Gavius Cofanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citi- 
zenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of 
his country against a cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined 
him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape ? 

The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for 
his native country, is brought before the wicked pr»tor. With 
eyes darting with fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, 
he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods 
to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of 
evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 53 

The bloodthirsty praetor, deaf to all he could urge in his own 
defence, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. 

Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly man- 
gled with scourging ; whilst the only words he uttered amidst 
his cruel sufferings were, " I am a Eoman citizen !" With these 
he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of 
so little service was this privilege to him that, while he was as- 
serting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution — 
for his execution upon the cross! 

liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! 
O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred, now 
trampled upon ! But what then ? Is it come to this ? Shall an 
inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his power of the 
Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, 
scourge, torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last 
put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman citizen ? 

Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor 
the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman 
commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, re- 
strain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster who, in 
confidence of his own riches, strikes at the root of liberty, and 
sets mankind at defiance ? 

1 conclude with expressing my hopes that your wisdom and 
justice, fathers, will not, by suffering the atrocious and unex- 
ampled insolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, 
leave room to apprehend the danger of a total subversion of 
authority and introduction of general anarchy and confusion. 

Marcus Tullitjs Cicero. 



INDUSTRY AND INTEGRITY THE HOPE OP THE 
STATE. 

Address to the Eoman Senate after Catiline's expulsion. 

I have often spoken to you, fathers, and at some extent, to 
complain of that luxury and greediness for money, the twin 
vices of our corrupt citizens, now so prevalent. I have thereby 
drawn down upon myself the hatred of many enemies. As I 



54 PATRIOTIC READER. 

never palliated my own faults, I was not so easily inclined to 
favor or overlook the excesses of others. You paid very slight 
regard to my protests, and yet, in the face of your neglect, the 
commonwealth bore itself up and subsisted by its own intrinsic 
strength. But the issue to-day is a different issue. Our manners, 
whether good or bad, are no longer the vital question, nor how 
to maintain the glory and lustre of the Eoman Empire, but to 
determine whether all that we possess and govern, well or ill, 
shall continue to be ours or be transferred with ourselves to 
open enemies. 

At such a time, in such a state of affairs, some talk to us of 
lenity and compassion. Long ago we lost the right names of 
things. The commonwealth is in its present deplorable condi- 
tion simply because we call giving away other people's estates 
"liberality," and call audacity in crime "courage." Let such 
men, since they will have it so and it has become the established 
style, pride themselves upon their liberality at the expense of 
the allies of the empire, and their lenity to the robbers of the 
public treasury ; but let them not make a largess of our blood, 
and to spare a small number of vile wretches expose all good 
men to destruction. 

Do not imagine, fathers, that it was by arms that our ances- 
tors made this commonwealth so great from a beginning so 
small. If it had been so, we should now see it much more 
nourishing, since we have more allies and citizens, more horse- 
and foot-soldiers, than they had. But they had other things 
that made them great, of which no traces remain among us : at 
home, labor and industry ; abroad, just and equitable govern- 
ment; a constancy of soul and an innocence of manners that 
kept them perfectly free in their councils, unrestrained either 
by the remembrance of past crimes or by craving appetites to 
satisfy. In the place of these virtues we have luxury and avarice ; 
madness to squander, with no madness to gain. The state is 
poor, while private citizens are rich. We give ourselves up to 
sloth and effeminacy. "We make no distinction between the good 
and the bad, while ambition absoi-bs all the rewards of virtue. 

Do you wonder that dangerous conspiracies are formed? Just 
so long as you regard nothing, nothing but your private inter- 
ests, so long as voluptuousness wholly employs you at home, and 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 55 

only avidity to rule, or control favor, governs you here, — in this 

very senate-chamber, — the commonwealth, defenceless, remains 

exposed to the devices of any person whomsoever, who thinks 

fit to attack it. 

Marcus Portius Cato. 



CICERO DENOUNCES THE TRAITOR CATILINE. 

How far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience ? How 
long wilt thou baffle justice in thy mad career? To what ex- 
tent will thy unbridled effrontery carry thee? Art thou 
nothing daunted by the nightly watch set to secure the Pala- 
tium ? Nothing, by the city guards ? Nothing, by this rally of 
all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the senate 
in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all 
here present ? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed ? 
that the wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowl- 
edge here in the senate ? that we all know of thy doings last 
night, of the night before, the place of meeting, the company 
assembled, the measures adopted ? Alas ! the times ! Alas ! the 
public morals! The senate understands all this. The consul 
sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and con- 
fronts us here in council, takes part in our deliberations, and, 
with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us, for slaughter. 
And we, all this time, urgent as we are, think we have fully dis- 
charged our duty to the state if we but avoid this madman's 
sword and fury ! 

O Catiline ! the consul ought long since to have ordered thee 
to execution and brought upon thy head the doom thou hast 
been planning for others. There was once such virtue in Rome 
that a vile citizen was held more worthy of a curse than the 
deadliest foe. Catiline ! we have a law for thee. Think not that 
we are powerless because forbearing. "We have a decree, though 
it rests among our archives as a sword in its scabbard, a decree 
by which thy life would be held as the forfeit of thy crimes. 
And should I order thee to instant seizure and death, I justly 
doubt whether all good men would not deem it done too late, 
than any man count it done too cruelly. But, for good reasons, 



56 PATRIOTIC READER. 

I will still defer the blow so long deserved. When no man is 
found so lost, so vile, nay, so like thee, but shall confess that it 
was justly done, I will fix thy doom. While there is one man 
that dares uphold thee, live ! But thou shalt live so beset, so 
surrounded, so scrutinized by the vigilant guards that I have 
girt about thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the re- 
public without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to note thy 
slightest motion, and ears to catch thy slightest whisper, of 
which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not 
hide thy treason ; the walls of privacy shall not smother its 
voice. Bafiied on all sides, thy subtlest purposes clear as noon- 
day, what canst thou have to plan ? Go on, plot, conspire as 
thou wilt, there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can 
propose, nothing you can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, 
and quickly understand. Soon shalt thou be conscious that I 
am even more vigilant to provide for the preservation of the 
state than thou in plotting its destruction. 

Marcus Tullius Cicero. 



THE TRAITOR CATILINE'S DEFIANCE. 
From the Tragedy of " Catiline." 

Conscript fathers I 

I do not rise to waste the night in words. 

Let that plebeian talk ; 'tis not my trade ; 

But here I stand for right — let him show proofs 

For Roman right ; though none, it seems, dare stand 

To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there ! 

Cling to your master — judges, Romans, slaves I 

His charge is false ! I dare him to his proofs ! 

You have my answer. Let my actions speak! 

But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 

And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong I 

Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword, 

Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, 

Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 

The gates of honor on me, turning out 



GEECIAN AND EOMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 57 

The Eoman from his birthright ; and for what ? 
To fling your offices to every slave I 
Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb, 
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top 
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Eome, 
Hang hissing at the nobler man below ! 
Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones, 
Fling down your sceptres, take the rod and axe, 
And make the murder, as you make the law. 

SECOND SELECTION. 

Banished from Eome ? "What's banished, but set free 

From daily contact of the things I loathe ? 

" Tried, and convicted, traitor" ? Who says this ? 

Who'll prove it at his peril, on my head ? 

Banished ? I thank you for 't ! It breaks my chain ! 

I held some slack allegiance till this hour ; 

But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords ! 

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 

Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 

I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 

To leave you, in your lazy dignities. 

But, here I stand and scoff you ! Here I fling 

Hatred, and full defiance, in your face ! 

Your consul's merciful ! For this, all thanks. 

He dares not touch a head of Catiline ! 

" Traitor" ? I go ; but I return. This, — trial ! 

Here, I devote your Senate I I've had wrongs 

To stir a fever in the blood of age, 

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel. 

This day's the birth of sorrow ! This hour's work 

Will breed proscriptions ! Look to your hearths, my lords ! 

For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods, 

Shapes hot from Tartarus ; all shames and crimes, 

Wan treachery, with his thirsty dagger di*awn ; 

Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup ; 

Naked rebellion, with the torch and axe, 

Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones, 



58 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Till anarchy comes down on you, like night, 
And massacre seals Eome's eternal grave. 

George Croly. 



VIRTUOUS LIBERTY PRICELESS. 

From the Tragedy of " Cato." (Period B.C. 46.) 

Cato, Lucius, and Sempronius. 

Cato. Fathers, we once again are met in council ; 
Caesar's approach has summoned us together, 
And Rome attends her fate from our resolves. 
How shall we treat this bold, aspiring man ? 
Success still follows him, and backs his crimes : 
Pharsalia gave him Rome, Egypt has since 
Received his yoke, and the whole Nile is Caesar's. 
"Why should I mention Juba's overthrow 
And Scipio's death ? Numidia's burning sands 
Still smoke with blood. 'Tis time we should decree 
What course to take. Our foe advances on us, 
And envies us even Libya's sultry deserts. 
Fathers, pronounce your thoughts : are they still fixed 
To hold it out, and fight it to the last ? 
Or are your hearts subdued at length, and wrought 
By time and ill success to a submission ? 
Sempronius, speak. 

Sempronius. My voice is still for war. 

Heavens ! can a Roman senate long debate 
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death ! 
No ; let us rise at once, gird on our swords, 
And, at the head of our remaining troops, 
Attack the foe, break through the thick array 
Of his thronged legions, and charge home upon him. 
Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest, 
May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage. 
Rise, fathers, rise ! 'tis Rome demands your help ; 
Rise, and avenge her slaughtered citizens, 



GEECIAN AND EOMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 59 

Or share their fate ! The corpse of half her senate 
Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we 
Sit here, delib'rating in cold debates 
If we shall sacrifice our lives to honor, 
Or wear them out in servitude and chains. 
Eise up, for shame ! our brothers of Pharsalia 
Point to their wounds, and cry aloud, To battle ! 
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, 
And Scij)io's ghost walks unrevenged among us. 

Cato. Let not a torrent of impetuous zeal 
Transport thee thus beyond the bounds of reason. 
True fortitude is seen in great exploits 
That justice warrants, and that wisdom guides. 
All else is towering frenzy and distraction. 
Are not the lives of those who drew the sword 
In Koine's defence intrusted to our care ? 
Should we thus lead them to the field of slaughter, 
Might not th' impartial world with reason say, 
We lavished at our death the blood of thousands 
To grace our fall, and make our ruin glorious ? 
Lucius, we next would know what's your opinion. 

Lucius. My thoughts, I must confess, are turned on peace. 
Already have our quarrels filled the world 
With widows and with orphans. Scythia mourns 
Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions 
Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Eome. 
'Tis time to sheathe the sword and spare mankind. 
It is not Caesar, but the gods, my fathers ; 
The gods declare against us, repel 
Our vain attempts. To urge the foe to battle, 
Prompted by blind revenge and wild despair, 
Were to refuse th' awards of Providence, 
And not to rest in Heaven's determination. 
Already have we shown our love to Eome ; 
Now let us show submission to the gods. 
We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves, 
But free the commonwealth ; when this end fails, 



60 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Arms have no further use ; our country's cause, 

That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands, 

And bids us not delight in Eoman blood 

Unprofitably shed. What men could do 

Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness, 

If Eome must fall, that we are innocent. 

Cato. Let us appear nor rash nor diffident; 
Immoderate valor swells into a fault; 
And fear, admitted into public councils, 
Betrays like treason. Let us shun them both. 
Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs 
Are grown thus desperate. We have bulwarks round us. 
Within our walls are troops inured to toil 
In Afric's heats, and seasoned to the sun. 
Numidia's spacious kingdom lies behind us, 
Eeady to rise at its young prince's call. 
While there is hope, do not distrust the gods, 
But wait at least till Csesar's near approach 
Force us to yield. 'Twill never be too late 
To sue for chains and own a conqueror. 
Why should Eome fall a moment ere her time ? 
No ! let us draw our term of freedom out 
In its full length, and spin it to the last. 
So shall we gain still one day's liberty ; 
And let me perish ; but in Cato's judgment 
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty 
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. 

Joseph Addison. 



CASSIUS INSTIGATES BRUTUS AGAINST CJESAB. 
From the Tragedy of " Julius Caesar." 

Honor is the subject of my story — 
I cannot tell what you and other men 
Think of this life ; but for my single self, 
I had as lief not be, as live to be 
In awe of such a thing as I myself. 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 61 

I was born free as Caesar ; so were you : 
We both have fed as well ; and we can both 
Endure the winter's cold as well as he. 

For once, upon a raw and gusty day, 
The troubled Tiber chafing with his shores, 
Caesar says to me, " Dar'st thou, Cassius, now 
Leap in, with me, into this angry flood, 
And swim to yonder point ?" Upon the word, 
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, 
And bade him follow ; so indeed he did. 
The torrent roared, and we did buffet it 
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside 
And stemming it with hearts of controversy. 
But ere we could arrive the point proposed, 
Caesar ci'ied, " Help me, Cassius, or I sink." 
I, as iEneas our great ancestor 
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder 
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber 
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man 
Is now become a god ; and Cassius is 
A wretched creature, and must bend his body 
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. 

He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
And when the fit was on him, I did mark 
How he did shake ; 'tis true, this god did shake ; 
His coward lips did from their color 'fly ; 
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 
Did lose its lustre ; I did hear him groan. 
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Eomans 
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books, 
Alas 1 it cried, " Give me some drink, Titinius," — 
As a sick girl. 

Ye gods, it doth amaze me, 
A man of such a feeble temper should 
So get the start of the majestic world, 
And bear the palm alone. 

Brutus and Caesar I What should be in that Caesar? 
Why should that name be sounded more than yours ? 
Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 



62 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure with them, 
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Csesar. 

Now in the names of all the gods at once, 
Upon what meat doth this our Csesar feed, 
That he is grown so great ? Age, thou art shamed ; 
Eome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods. 
When went there by an age, since the great flood, 
But it was famed with more than with one man ? 
When could they say, till now, that talked of Eome, 
That her wide walls encompassed but one man ? 
Oh ! you and I have heard our fathers say, 
There was a Brutus once, that would have brooked 
The eternal devil to keep his state in Borne, 

As easily as a king. 

"William Shakespeare. 



ANTONY'S SPEECH OVER THE BODY OF CAESAR. 

From the Tragedy of " Julius Csesar. " (Period, b.c. 44.) 

Friends, Eomans, countrymen ! Lend me your ears. 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
The evil that men do lives after them ; 
The good is oft interred with their bones : 
So let it be with Csesar ! 

The noble Brutus 
Hath told you, Csesar was ambitious. 
If it were so, it was a grievous fault ; 
And grievously hath Csesar answered it. 
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest 
(For Brutus is an honorable man, 
So are they all, all honorable men), 
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me ; 
But Brutus says he was ambitious ; 
And Brutus is an honorable man. 
He hath brought many captives home to Eome, 
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill ; 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 63 

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious ? 

When that the poor hath cried, Cassar hath wept I 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that, on the Lupercal, 

I thrice presented him a kingly crown ; 

Which he did thrice refuse : Was this ambition ? 

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious ; 

And sure he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; 
But here I am to speak what I do know. 
You all did love him once ; not without cause ; 
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him ? 

judgment ! thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me ; 
My heart is in the coffin there, with Caesar, 
And I must pause till it come back to me. 

But yesterday, the word of Caesar might 

Have stood against the world ; now lies he there, 

And none so poor to do him reverence. 

.0 masters ! if I were disposed to stir 

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, 

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, 
Who, you all know, are honorable men. 

I will not do them wrong. I rather choose 
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, 
Than I will wrong such honorable men. 

But here's a parchment, with the seal of Caesar ; 
I found it in his closet ; 'tis his will. 
Let but the commons hear this testament 
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read), 
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, 
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood, 
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, 
And dying, mention it within their wills, 
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, 
Unto their issue. 



64 PATRIOTIC READER. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 
You all do know this mantle; I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
'Tvvas on a summer's evening in his tent, 
That day he overcame the Nervii. — 
Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through ; 
See what a rent the envious Casca made ; 
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; 
And as he plucked his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed itl 

This, this was the unkindest cut of all. 
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, 
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, 
Quite vanquished him ! Then burst his mighty heart, 
And in his mantle muffling up his face, 
Even at the base of Pompey's statue 
(Which all the while ran blood), great Caesar fell. 



O, what a fall was there, my countrymen I 
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, 
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us! 
O, now you weep ; and I perceive you feel 
The dint of pity. These are gracious drops. 
Kind souls! What, weep you when you but behold 
Our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look you here ! 
Here is himself, marred, as you see, by traitors. 

Good friends! Sweet friends! Let me not stir you up 
To such a sudden flood of mutiny ! 
They that have done this deed are honorable ! 
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, 
That made them do it ! They are wise and honorable, 
And will, no doubt, with reason answer you. 

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts ; 
I am no orator, as Brutus is, 
But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, 
That love my friend, and that, they knew full well 
That gave me public leave to speak of him ! 
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 65 

Action, nor utterance, nor power of speech, 
To stir men's blood. 

I only speak right on. 
T tell you that which you yourselves do know, 
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, 
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, 
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony 
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue 
In every wound of Caesar, that should move 
The stones of Eome to rise and mutiny. 

William Shakespbark. 



BRUTUS'S SPEECH ON THE DEATH OP CAESAR. 
From the Tragedy of "Julius Caesar." 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers ! hear me, for my cause ; and 
be silent, that you may hear. Believe me, for mine honor ; and 
have respect for mine honor, that you may believe. Censure 
me in your wisdom ; and awake your senses, that you may the 
better judge. 

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, 
to him I say, that Brutus's love to Caesar was no less than his. 
If, then, that friend demand, why Brutus rose against Caesar, 
this is my answer ; not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved 
Rome more. 

Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than 
that Caesar were dead, to live all freemen ? As Caesar loved me, 
I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was 
valiant, I honor him ; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. 

There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his 
valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base, that he 
would be a bondman ? If any, speak ; for him have I offended. 
Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman ? If any, 
speak ; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that 
will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I 

offended. I pause for a reply 

5 



66 PATRIOTIC READER. 

None ? Then none have I offended. I have done no more to 
Caesar, than you shall do to Brutus. And as I slew my best 
lover for the good of Eome, I have the same dagger for my- 
self, when it shall please my country to need my death. 

William Shakespeare. 



THE CHARACTER OF BRUTUS. 

Ask any one man of morals, whether he approves of assas- 
sination ; he will answer, No. Would you kill your friend and 
benefactor? No. The question is a horrible insult. Would 
you practise hypocrisy and smile in his face, while your con- 
spiracy is ripening, to gain his confidence and to lull him into 
security, in order to take away his life ? Every honest man, on 
the bare suggestion, feels his blood thicken and stagnate at his 
heart. Yet in this picture we see Brutus. It would, perhaps, 
be scarcely just to hold him up to abhorrence ; it is, certainly, 
monstrous and absurd to exhibit his conduct to admiration. 

He did not strike the tyrant from hatred or ambition ; his 
motives were admitted to be good ; but was not the action, 
nevertheless, bad? 

To kill a tyrant is as much murder as to kill any other man. 
Besides, Brutus, to extenuate the crime, could have had no 
rational hope of putting an end to the tyranny ; he had foreseen 
and provided nothing to realize it. 

The conspirators relied, foolishly enough, on the love of the 
multitude for liberty ; they loved their safety, their ease, their 
sports, and their demagogue favorites a great deal better. They 
quietly looked on, as spectators, and left it to the legions of 
Antony, and Octavius, and to those of Syria, Macedonia, and 
Greece, to decide in the field of Philippi whether there should 
be a republic or not. It was accordingly decided in favor of an 
emperor ; and the people sincerely rejoiced in the political calm 
that restored the games of the circus, and the plenty of bread. 

Those who cannot bring their judgment to condemn the 
killing of a tyrant must nevertheless agree that the blood of 
Csesar was unprofitably shed. Liberty gained nothing by it, 
and humanity lost much ; for it cost eighteen years of agitation 



GRECIAN AND ROMAN PATRIOTIC EXPRESSION. 67 

and civil war, before the ambition of the military and popular 
chieftains had expended its means, and the power was concen- 
trated in one man's hands. 

Shall we be told the example of Brutus is a good one, because 
it will never cease to animate the race of tyrant-killers ? But 
will the fancied usefulness of assassination overcome our instinct- 
ive sense of its horrors ? Is it to become a part of our political 
morals, that the chief of a state is to be stabbed or poisoned 
whenever a fanatic, a malecontent, or a reformer shall rise up 
and call him tyrant ? Then there would be as little calm in 
despotism as in liberty. 

But when has it happened that the death of an usurper has 
restored to the public liberty its departed life ? Every successful 
usurpation creates many competitors for power, and they suc- 
cessively fall in the struggle. In all this agitation, liberty is 
without friends, without resources, and without hope. Blood 
enough, and the blood of tyrants, too, was shed between the 
time of the wars of Marius and the death of Antony, a period of 
about sixty years, to turn a common grist-mill ; yet the cause 
of the public liberty continually grew more and more desperate. 
It is not by destroying tyrants that we are to extinguish tyranny ; 
nature is not thus to be exhausted of her power to produce them. 
The soil of a republic sprouts with the rankest fertility ; it has 
been sown with dragons' teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurp- 
ing demagogues, we must enlighten, animate, and combine the 
spirit of freemen ; we must fortify and guard the constitutional 
ramparts about liberty. When its friends become indolent or 
disheartened, it is no longer of any importance how long-lived 

are its enemies : they will prove immortal. 

Fisher Ames. 



C-ffiSAR CROSSING THE RUBICON. 

A gentleman speaking of Caesar's benevolent disposition, and 
of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil war, ob- 
serves, " How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon !" 
How came he to the brink of that river ? How dared he cross 
it ? Shall private men respect the boundaries of private prop- 



68 PATRIOTIC READER. 

erty, and shall a man pay no respect to the boundaries of his 
country's rights ? 

How dared he cross that river ? Oh ! but he paused upon the 
brink ! He should have perished upon the brink before he had 
crossed it. Why did he pause ? Why does a man's heart pal- 
pitate when he is on the point of committing an unlawful deed ? 
Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, 
and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wide 
of the mortal part ? Because of conscience ! 'Twas that made 
Caesar pause upon the brink of the Eubicon. 

Csesar paused upon the brink of the Eubicon! What was 
the Eubicon ? The boundary of Caesar's province ! From what 
did it separate that province ? From his country ! Was that 
country a desert ? No ! It was cultivated and fertile, rich and 
populous. Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity. 
Its daughters were pure, lovely, and ingenuous. Friendship was 
its inhabitant. Love was its inhabitant. Domestic affection 
was its inhabitant. Liberty was its inhabitant. All bounded 
by the stream of the Eubicon. 

What was Caesar, who stood upon the bank of that stream ? 
A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that 
country. No wonder that he paused. No wonder if, his imagi- 
nation wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood 
instead of water, and heard groans instead of murmurs. No 
wonder if some Gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon 
the spot. But no: he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged, 
he crossed, and Eome was free no more. 

James Sheridan Knowles. 



PART III. 

THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The centennial year of American Independence, 1876, intro- 
duced such a memorial review of general and local history as 
belongs only to countries which have produced men, or have 
established landmarks, well worthy of notice through successive 
generations. The world's recognition of our political and mate- 
rial progress, and the settlement of issues which retarded, if 
they did not seriously endanger, American liberty, have already 
done much to restore a waning veneration for the founders of 
the republic. Monuments, statues, libraries, colleges, and other 
memorial buildings and institutions have been made tributary 
to the more distinct and permanent recognition of the great and 
good men of the past. America is indeed no longer young, but 
had become so absorbed in the stirring events of these busy 
times as to be tempted to underestimate the severity of the 
sacrifices which secured the blessings and glories of to-day. 

In the enjoyment of exceptional civil and religious freedom, it 
is well to revive and cherish the associations which reach far 
behind the actual war for independence, even though they lack 
the exciting elements of battle on land or sea. Thereby we 
honor the personal experience of those pioneer settlers whose 
life was chiefly that of intense soul-struggle, with very faint 
conceptions of the vast range of prosperity and blessing which 
would be the result. 

Our founders, in common with all who seek a foreign shore 
for a new home, or even for mere adventure, shared the hope 
that worldly prosperity would be the result, and that escape 
from the oppressive restraints of the Old World would insure 



70 PATRIOTIC READER. 

a healthy independence of action and the corresponding benefits 
in the New. 

The purpose to administer their own government in the 
interests of both civil and religious liberty was nowhere more 
distinctly asserted than by the founders of Maryland, but they 
did not cross the ocean under such an overwhelming pressure 
of religious obligation as did those who had no alternative but 
emigration or the surrender of religious convictions. The set- 
tlers of Maryland had the high privilege of being accompanied 
by their religious faith, and building for freedom, without the 
sacrifice of home ties and home endearments. Many of our 
founders, however, came to these shores because their religious 
faith was itself exiled, and they followed, rather than abandon 
or betray it. The Dutch at New York, the Swedes in Dela- 
ware, and the hardy colonists who first tilled other plantations 
along the Atlantic coast, alike command our respect and grate- 
ful tribute. From their varied activities and temperaments we 
derived much of the force which united all in final resistance to 
British dictation. But there was a distinctive moral force which 
shaped our destiny as a nation, never to be slighted or forgotten. 
It is only by a just appreciation of that class of labor and sacri- 
fice that our youth can comprehend the magnitude and wisdom 
of their labors, so as to be just to all, unjust to none. 



THE LANDING OP THE PILGRIMS. 

The breaking waves dashed high, on a stern and rock-bound 

coast, 
And the woods against a stormy sky their giant branches tossed, 
And the heavy night hung dark, the hills and waters o'er, 
When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New Eng- 
land shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes, they, the true-hearted, came ; 
Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings 
of fame ; 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 71 

Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear, — 
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom with their hymns 
of lofty cheer. 

Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea! 

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang to the anthem of 
the free ! 

The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white waves' foam, 

And the rocking pines of the forest roared, — this was their wel- 
come home ! 

There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band, — 
Why had they come to wither there, away from their childhood's 

land? 
There was woman's fearless eye, lit by her deep love's truth ; 
There was manhood's brow, serenely high, and the fiery heart 

of youth. 

What sought they thus afar ? bright jewels of the mine ? 

The wealth of seas ? the spoils of war ? — They sought a faith's 

pure shrine ! 
Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod ; 
They have left unstained what there they found, — freedom to 

worship God ! 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans. 



THE POUNDERS OP OUR GOVERNMENT. 

The love of liberty has always been the ruling passion of our 
nation. It was mixed at first with the "purple tide" of the 
founders' lives, and, circulating with that tide through their 
veins, has descended down through every generation of their 
posterity, marking every feature of our country's glorious story. 
May it continue thus to circulate and descend to the remotest 
period of time ! 

Oppressed and persecuted in their native country, the high, 
indignant spirit of our fathers formed the bold design of leaving 



72 PATRIOTIC READER. 

a land where minds as well as bodies were chained, for regions 
where Freedom might be found to dwell, though her dwelling 
should prove to be amid wilds and Avolves, or savages less hos- 
pitable than wilds and wolves. An ocean three thousand miles 
wide, with its winds and its waves, rolled in vain between them 
and liberty. They performed the grand enterprise, and landed 
on this then uncultivated shore. Here, on their first arrival, they 
found 

The wilderness "all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide." 

Their courage and industry soon surmounted all the difficul- 
ties incident to a new settlement. The savages retired, the 
forests were exchanged for fields waving with richest harvests, 
and the dreary haunts of wild beasts for the cheerful abodes of 
civilized man. Increasing in wealth and population with a 
rapidity which excited the astonishment of the Old World, our 
nation flourished about a century and a half, when England, 
pressed down with the enormous weight of accumulating debts, 
and considering the inhabitants of these States as slaves, who 
owed their existence and preservation to her care and protection, 
now began to form the unjust, tyrannical, and impolitic plan of 
taxing this country without its consent. The right of taxation, 
however, not being relinquished, but the same principle under a 
different shape being pursued, the awful genius of Freedom 
arose ; not with the ungovernable ferocity of the tiger, to tear 
and devour, but with the cool, determined, persevering courage 
of the lion, who, disdaining to be a slave, resists the chain. As 
liberty was the object of contest, that being secured, the offer 
of peace was joyfully accepted, and peace was restored to free, 
united, independent Columbia. 

William Merchant Richardson. 



THE PILGRIMS. 



From the dark portals of the Star Chamber, and in the stern 
text of the Acts of Uniformity, the pilgrims received a commis- 
sion more efficient than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their 
banishment to Holland was fortunate ; the decline of their little 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 73 

company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties 
which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish 
themselves to this wilderness were fortunate ; all the tears and 
heart-breakings of that ever-memorable parting at Delfthaven 
had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New Eng- 
land. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough 
touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. 
They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and re- 
quired of those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a 
broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause, and if 
this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we 
find no apology for such a human weakness ? 

Their trials of wandering and of exile, of the ocean, the winter, 
the wilderness, and the savage foe, were the final assurances of 
success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause 
all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to pre-eminence. No 
effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of 
the pilgrims. No Carr nor Yilliers would lead on the ill-provided 
band of despised Puritans. No well-endowed clergy were on 
the alert to quit their cathedrals and set up a pompous hierarchy 
in the frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious 
to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorados of ice and snow. No, 
they could not say they had encouraged, patronized, or helped 
the pilgrims ; their own cares, their own labors, their own coun- 
sels, their own blood, contrived all, achieved all, bore all, sealed 
all. They could not afterwards fairly pretend to reap where 
they had not strewn ; and as our fathers reared this broad and 
solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely toler- 
ated, it did not fall when the favor which had always been 
withholden was changed into wrath, when the arm which had 
never supported was raised to destroy. 

Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, 
the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of 
a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it 
pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious 
voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and 
winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight 
of the wished-for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with 
provisions ; crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison ; 



74 PATRIOTIC READER. 

delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven 
in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. 
The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The 
laboring masts seem straining from their base ; the dismal sound 
of the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from 
billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing 
floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shiver- 
ing weight against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped 
from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, 
and landing at last, after five months' passage, on the ice-clad 
rocks of Plymouth, weak and weaiy from the voyage, poorly 
armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their 
ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing 
but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded 
by hostile tribes. 

Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle 
of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of 
adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many 
months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes 
enumerated within the early limits of New England ? Tell me, 
politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your 
conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant 
coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, 
the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other 
times, and find the parallel of this. "Was it the winter's storm 
beating on the houseless heads of women and children ? was it 
hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the toma- 
hawk ? was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined en- 
terprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the 
recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea ? was it some, 
or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to 
their melancholy fate ? 

And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all 
combined, were able to blast this bud of hope ? Is it possible 
that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much 
of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so 
steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality 
so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious ? 

Edward Everett. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 75 



CHAEACTER OF THE PURITAN FATHERS. 

One of the most prominent features which distinguished our 
forefathers was their determined resistance to oppression. They 
seemed born and brought up for the high and special purpose 
of showing to the world that the civil and religious rights of 
man, the rights of self-government, of conscience and inde- 
pendent thought, are not merely things to be talked of and 
woven into theories, but to be adopted with the whole strength 
and ardor of the mind, and felt in the profoundest recesses of 
the heart, carried out into the general life, and made the founda- 
tion of practical usefulness, visible beauty, and true nobility. 

Liberty, with them, was an object of too serious desire and 
stern resolve to be personified, allegorized, and enshrined. They 
made no goddess of it, as the ancients did ; they had no time nor 
inclination for such trifling ; they felt that liberty was the simple 
birthright of every human creature ; they called it so ; they 
claimed it as such ; they reverenced and held it fast as the un- 
alienable gift of the Creator, which was not to be surrendered 
to power nor sold for wages. 

It was theirs as men (without it they did not esteem them- 
selves men ; more than any other privilege or possession it was 
essential to their happiness, for it was essential to their original 
nature), and therefore they preferred it above wealth and ease 
and country ; and, that they might enjoy and exercise it fully, 
they forsook houses and lands and kindred, their homes, their 
native soil, and their fathers' graves. 

The principles of revolution were not the suddenly acquired 
property of a few bosoms ; they were abroad in the land in the 
ages before ; they had always been taught, like the truths of 
the Bible ; they had descended from father to son, down from 
those primitive days when the pilgrim, established in his simple 
dwelling, and seated at his blazing fire, piled high from the 
forest which shaded his door, repeated to his listening children 
the story of his wrongs and his resistance, and bade them 
rejoice, though the wild winds and the wild beasts were howling 
without, that they had nothing to fear fz^om great men's opposi- 
tion and the bishops' rage. 



76 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Here were the beginnings of the revolution. Every settler's 
hearth was a school of independence; the scholars were apt, 
and the lessons sunk deeply ; and thus it came that our country 
was always free ; it could not be other than free. 

As deeply seated as was the principle of liberty and resist- 
ance to arbitrary power in the breasts of the Puritans, it was 
not more so than their piety and sense of religious obligation. 

They were emphatically a people whose God was the Lord. 
Their form of government was as strictly theocratical, if direct 
communication be excepted, as was that of the Jews ; insomuch 
that it would be difficult to say where there was any civil 
authority among them entirely distinct from ecclesiastical juris- 
diction. 

God was their king; and they regarded him as truly and 
literally so as if he had dwelt in a visible palace in the midst 
of their state. They were his devoted, resolute, humble sub- 
jects ; they undertook nothing which they did not beg of him 
to prosper; they accomplished nothing without rendering to 
him the praise ; they suffered nothing without carrying up their 
sorrows to his throne ; they ate nothing which they did not im- 
plore him to bless. 

That there were hypocrites among them is not to be doubted ; 
but they were rare ; the men who voluntarily exiled themselves 
to an unknown coast, and endured there every toil and hardship 
for conscience' sake, and that they might serve God in their 
own manner, were not likely to set conscience at defiance and 
make the service of God a mockery ; they were not likely to be, 
neither were they, hypocrites. I do not know that it would be 
arrogating too much for them to say that, on the extended sur- 
face of the globe, there was not a single community of men to 
be compared with them in the respects of deep religious im- 
pressions, and an exact performance of moral duty. 

Franois "William Pitt Greenwood. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 77 



TWO CENTURIES FROM THE LANDING OP THE 
PILGRIMS. 

If, on this day, after the lapse of two centuries, one of the 
fathers of New England, released from the sleep of death, could 
reappear on earth, what would be his emotions of joy and won- 
der ! In lieu of a wilderness, here and there interspersed with 
solitary cabins, where life was scarcely worth the danger of 
preserving it, he would behold joyful harvests, a population 
crowded even to satiety, villages, towns, cities, States, swarming 
with industrious inhabitants, hills graced with temples of de- 
votion, and valleys vocal with the early lessons of virtue. Cast- 
ing his eye on the ocean which he passed in fear and trembling, 
he would see it covered with enterprising fleets returning with 
the whale as their captive, and the wealth of the Indies for 
their cargo. He would behold the little colony which he 
planted grown into gigantic stature, and forming an honorable 
part of a glorious confederacy, the pride of the earth, and the 
favorite of heaven. 

He would witness, with exultation, the general prevalence of 
correct principles of government and virtuous habits of action. 
How gladly would he gaze upon the long stream of light and 
renown from Harvard's classic fount, and the kindred springs 
of Yale, of Providence, of Dartmouth, and of Brunswick ! 
Would you fill his bosom with honest pride, — tell him of Frank- 
lin, who made thunder sweet music, and the lightning innocent 
fireworks ; of Adams, the venerable sage reserved by heaven, 
himself a blessing, to witness its blessing on our nation; of 
Ames, whose tongue became, and has become, an angel's; of 
Perry, — 

" Blest by his God with one illustrious day, 
A blaze of glory, ere he passed away ;" 

and tell him, Pilgrim of Plymouth, these are thy descendants. 
Show him the stately structures, the splendid benevolence, the 
masculine intellect, and the sweet hospitality of the metropolis 
of New England. Show him that immortal vessel, whose name 
is synonymous with triumph, and each of her masts a sceptre. 
Show him the glorious fruits of his humble enterprise, and ask him 



78 PATRIOTIC READER. 

if this, all this, be not an atonement for his sufferings, a recom- 
pense for his toils, a blessing on his efforts, and a heart-expand- 
ing triumph for the pilgrim adventurer ? 

And if he be proud of his offspring, well may they boast of 
their parentage. 

Wilbur Fisk Crafts. 



IN MEMORY OP THE PILGRIMS. 
1820. 

Wake your harps' music ! louder ! higher 1 

And pour your strains along ; 
And smite again each quivering wire. 

In all the pride of song ! 
Shout like those godlike men of old, 

Who, daring storm and foe, 
On this blest soil their anthem rolled 

Two hundred years ago ! 

From native shores by tempests driven, 

They sought a purer sky, 
And found beneath a milder heaven 

The home of liberty. 
An altar rose, — and prayers, — a ray 

Broke on their night of woe, — 
The harbinger of Freedom's day, — 

Two hundred years ago ! 

They clung around that symbol too, 

Their refuge and their all, 
And swore, while skies and waves were blue, 

That altar should not fall. 
They stood upon the red man's sod, 

'Neath heaven's unpillared bow, 
With home, a country, and a God, 

Two hundred years ago I 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 79 

Oh, 'twas a hard, unyielding fate 

That drove them to the seas ; 
And Persecution strove with Hate 

To darken her decrees ; 
But safe above each coral grave 

Each blooming ship did go : 
A God was on the western wave 

Two hundred years ago ! 

They knelt them on the desert sand, 

By waters cold and rude, 
Alone upon the dreary strand 

Of ocean solitude ! 
They looked upon the high blue air, 

And felt their spirits glow, 
Eesolved to live or perish there, — 

Two hundred years ago I 

The warrior's red right arm was bared, 

His eye flashed deep and wild : 
Was there a foreign footstep dared 

To seek his home and child ? 
The dark chiefs yelled alarm, and swore 

The white man's blood should flow, 
And his hewn bones should bleach their shores, — 

Two hundred years ago ! 

But lo ! the warriors eye grew dim, 

His arm was left alone ; 
The still, black wilds which sheltered him 

No longer were his own ! 
Time fled, and on the hallowed ground 

His highest pine lies low, 
And cities swell where forests frowned 

Two hundred years ago ! 

Oh ! stay not to recount the tale, — 

'Twas bloody, and 'tis past ; 
The firmest cheek might well grow pale 

To hear it to the last. 



80 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The God of heaven, who prospers us, 

Could bid a nation grow, 
And shield us from the red man's curse, 

Two hundred years ago ! 

Come, then, great shades of glorious men, 

From your still glorious grave ; 
Look on your own proud land again, 

O bravest of the brave ! 
We call you from each mouldering tomb, 

And each blue wave below, 
To bless the world ye snatched from doom 

Two hundred years ago ! 

Then to your harps, — yet louder ! higher ! 

And pour your strains along ; 
And smite again each quivering wire, 

In all the pride of song ! 
Shout for those godlike men of old, 

Who, daring storm and foe, 
On this blest soil their anthem rolled 

Two hundred years ago ! 

Grenville Mellen. 



NEW ENGLAND'S DEAD. 

New England's dead ! New England's dead 

On every hill they lie ; 
On every field of strife made red 

By bloody victory. 
Each valley, where the battle poured 

Its red and awful tide, 
Beheld the brave New England sword 

With slaughter deeply dyed. 
Their bones are on the northern hill, 

And on the southern plain. 
By brook and river, lake and rill, 

And by the roaring main. 



THE PATEIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 81 

The land is holy where they fought, 

And holy where they fell ; 
For by their blood that land was bought, 

The land they loved so well. 
Then glory to that valiant band, 
The honored saviors of the land ! 
Oh ! few and weak their numbers were, — 

A handful of brave men ; 
But to their God they gave their prayer, 

And rushed to battle then. 
The God of battles heard their cry. 
And sent to them the victory. 

They left the ploughshare in the mould, 
Their flocks and herds without a fold, 
The sickle in the unshorn grain, 
The corn, half garnered, on the plain, 
And mustered, in their simple dress, 
For wrongs to seek a stern redress ; 
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe ; 
To perish, or o'ercome their foe. 

And where are ye, O fearless men ? 

And where are ye to-day ? 
I call : the hills reply again 

That ye have passed away ; 
That on old Bunker's lonely height, 

In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, 
The grass grows green, the harvest bright, 

Above each soldier's mound. 

The bugle's wild and warlike blast 

Shall muster them no more ; 
An army now might thunder past, 

And they not heed its roar. 
The starry flag, 'neath which they fought 

In many a bloody day, 

From their old graves shall rouse them not, 

For they have passed away. 

Isaac McLellan. Jr. 



82 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE PILGRIM FATHERS-WHERE ARE THEY? 

The pilgrim fathers, — where are they ? 

The waves that brought them o'er 
Still roll in the bay, and throw their spray 

As they break along the shore ; 
Still roll in the bay, as they rolled that day 

When the Mayflower moored below, 
When the sea around was black with storms, 

And white the shore with snow. 

The mists that wrapped the pilgrim's sleep 

Still brood upon the tide ; 
And his rocks yet keep their watch by the deep, 

To stay its waves of pride. 
But the snow-white sail, that he gave to the gale 

When the heavens looked dark, is gone ; 
As an angel's wing, through an opening cloud, 

Is seen and then withdrawn. 

The pilgrim exile, — sainted name ! 

The hill, whose icy brow 
Rejoiced when he came in the morning's flame, 

In the morning's flame burns now, 
And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night 

On the hill-side and the sea, 
Still lies where he laid his houseless head ; 

But the pilgrim, where is he ? 

The pilgrim fathers are at rest : 

When summer's throned on high, 
And the world's warm breast is in verdure dressed, 

Go stand on the hill where they lie. 
The earliest ray of the golden day 

On that hallowed spot is cast, 
And the evening sun, as he leaves the world, 

Looks kindly on that spot last. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 83 

The pilgrim spirit has not fled : 

It walks in noon's broad light ; 
And it watches the bed of the glorious dead 

With the holy stars, by night. 
It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, 

And shall guard this ice-bound shore 
Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay, 

Shall foam and freeze no more. 

John Pierfont. 



THE ROCK OF THE PILGRIMS. 

A rock in the wilderness welcomed our sires, 
From bondage far over the dark-rolling sea ; 

On that holy altar they kindled their fires, 
Jehovah 1 which glow in our bosoms for Thee. 

Thy blessings descended in sunshine and shower, 
Or rose from the soil that was sown by Thy hand ; 

The mountain and valley rejoiced in Thy power, 
And heaven encircled and smiled on the land. 

The pilgrims of old an example have given 

Of mild resignation, devotion, and love, 
Which beams like a star in the blue vault of heaven, 

A beacon-light hung in their mansion above. 

In church and cathedral we kneel in our prayer, — 
Their temple and chapel were valley and hill ; 

But God is the same, in the aisle or the air, 
And He is the Rock that we lean upon still. 

George P. Morris. 



84 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE SONG OF THE PILGRIMS. 

The breeze has swelled the whitening sail, 
The blue waves curl beneath the gale, 
And, bounding with the wave and wind, 
We leave old England's shores behind ; 
Leave behind our native shore, 
Homes, and all we loved before. 

The deep may dash, the winds may blow, 
The storm spread out its wings of woe, 
Till sailors' eyes can see a shroud 
Hung in the folds of every cloud ; 

Still, as long as life shall last, 
Prom that shore we'll speed us fast. 

For we would rather never be, 
Than dwell where mind cannot be free, 
But bows beneath a despot's rod, 
Even where it seeks to worship G-od. 

Blasts of heaven, onward sweep ! 

Bear us o'er the troubled deep ! 

Oh, see what wonders meet our eyes ! 

Another land and other skies ! 

Columbia's hills have met our view ! 

Adieu ! old England's shores, adieu ! 

Here, at length, our feet shall rest, 
Hearts be free, and homes be blest. 

As long as yonder firs shall spread 
Their green arms o'er the mountain's head, 
As long as yonder cliffs shall stand, 
Where join the ocean and the land, 

Shall those cliffs and mountains be 
Proud retreats for liberty. 

Now to the King of kings we'll raise 
The psean loud of sacred praise, 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 85 

More loud than sounds the swelling breeze! 
More loud than speak the rolling seas ! 

Happier lands have met our view ! 

England's shores, adieu ! adieu ! 

Thomas Cogswell Upham. 



THE FATHERS OP NEW ENGLAND. 

Behold ! they come, those sainted forms, 
Unshaken through the strife of storms ; 
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down, 
And earth puts on its rudest frown ; 
But colder, ruder, was the hand 
That drove them from their own fair land, 
Their own fair land, — refinement's chosen seat, 
Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat, 
By valor guarded, and by victory crowned, 
For all but gentle charity renowned. 

With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart, 
Even from that land they dared to part, 

And burst each tender tie ; 
Haunts where their sunny youth was passed, 
Homes where they fondly hoped at last 

In peaceful age to die, 
Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned,-^- 

Their fathers' hallowed graves, — 
And to a world of darkness turned, 
Beyond a world of waves. 

When Israel's race from bondage fled, 
Signs from on high the wanderers led ; 
But here — Heaven hung no symbol here, 
Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer ; 
They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night, 
Naught but the fagot's guilty light ; 
The cloud they gazed at was the smoke 
That round their murdered brethren broke ; 



86 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Nor power above, nor power below, 
Sustained them in their hour of woe ; 

A fearful path they trod, 
And dared a fearful doom, 

To build an altar to their God, 
And find a quiet tomb. 

Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand, 

On yonder ice-bound rock, 
Stern and resolved, that faithful band, 

To meet fate's rudest shock. 
Though anguish rends the father's breast 
For them, his dearest and his best, 

With him the waste who trod, — 
Though tears that freeze, the mother sheds 
Upon her children's houseless heads, — 

The Christian turns to God ! 

In grateful adoration now, 

Upon the barren sands they bow. 

What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer 

As bursts in desolation there ? 

What arm of strength e'er wrought such power 

As waits to crown that feeble hour? 
There into life an infant empire springs ! 

There falls the iron from the soul ; 

There liberty's young accents roll 
Up to the King of kings ! 

To fair creation's farthest bound 

That thrilling summons yet shall sound ; 

The dreaming nations shall awake, 
And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake. 
Pontiff and prince, your sway 
Must crumble from that day ; 

Before the loftier throne of heaven 

The hand is raised, the pledge is given, — 
One monarch to obey, one creed to own, 
That monarch, God, — that creed, His word alone. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 87 

Spread out earth's holiest records here, 
Of days and deeds, to reverence dear. 
A zeal like this what pious legends tell ? 
On kingdoms built 
In blood and guilt 
The worshippers of vulgar triumph dwell ; 
But what exploit with theirs shall page, 

Who rose to bless their kind, 
Who left their nation and their age, 

Man's spirit to unbind ? 
Who boundless seas passed o'er, 
And boldly met, in every path, 
Famine and frost and heathen wrath, 
To dedicate a shore 
Where piety's meek train might breathe their vow, 
And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow ; 
Where liberty's glad race might proudly come, 
And set up there an everlasting home ? 

Charles Sprague. 



THE HUGUENOT EXODUS TO AMERICA. 

Individuals, led on by an ambitious desire to improve their 
personal fortunes, have abandoned the home of their fathers. 
None of these motives prompted the Huguenot ancestors of the 
people of Carolina to leave the delightful hills and valleys of 
their native France. They were no instruments in the hands 
of ambitious princes for the increase of their wealth or power. 
They did not seek a home in America through mere love of 
adventure, or the ordinary inducements of pecuniary gain. 
They sought an asylum from persecution, a home in which they 
might enjoy, unmolested, the sweets of political and personal 
liberty. They longed to bear away their altars and their faith 
to a land of real freedom, a land allowing free scope to the ex- 
ercise of conscience in worship of their Maker. 

Their name is synonymous with patient endurance, noble for- 
titude, and high religious purpose. In reverting to the period 
when a plain but high-souled, energetic people Avere driven, by 
persecutions of the Old World, to take refuge in this uncultivated 



88 PATRIOTIC READER. 

wild, we trace the origin of these people, and tread upon the 
ashes of the pioneers of religion, of domestic peace, and social 
virtue. To revive the memories of the generous dead, to hold 
up to praise and emulation ancestral virtue, are grateful tasks, 
which seldom fail to achieve lasting and beneficial results. We 
look back to our fathers for lessons of wisdom and piety. We 
take pleasure in recalling their brave deeds and their exalted 
virtue. We like to frequent their walks and haunts. With 
pleasure we sit around the firesides at which they sat, and wor- 
ship before the altars at which they worshipped; and who will 
quarrel with this just principle of our nature ? 

Our Huguenot ancestors came to this country in the complete 
armor of grown-up, civilized men. They had been raised under 
the auspices of an old and refined civilization. Their minds 
and hearts had undergone the severest discipline of an improved- 
age and of bitter experience. 

Prohibited from acting in any branch of the learned profession, 
not even allowed to pursue the calling of any business by which 
to support their families, taking shelter in deserts and forests, 
with property confiscated, and religious worship of their choice 
interdicted, they quit their native land. Quiet and unobtrusive 
in their manners, faithful to their king, obedient to the civil and 
political laws of their country, they begged only for freedom in 
religious worship. No violence, no contempt of their l'ights, no 
harsh vituperation, could impair their fealty to their sovereign 
in all things pertaining to the legitimate claims of his station. 
Over his losses they lamented. He received from them sincere 
condolence for his misfortunes and fervent prayers for his happi- 
ness. His heart was steeled against such generous, simple, and 
truly loyal worship, and their cup of bitterness was full. The fiat 
of injured nature went forth. Eesolved to endure no longer the 
oppressions of a home they loved so fondly, they prepared, even 
as a child still loves a parent who has mercilessly cast him upon 
the broad bosom of the world, friendless and penniless, to bid 
adieu to all they loved in their dear, native France, and find in 
America a now country, a real home.* W. C. Moragne. 

* From address at Abbeville, S.O., 1886, tbrougb the courtesy of Dr. T. 
Gaillard Thomas, of New York. 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 89 



THE LANDING OP THE HUGUENOTS. 

We behold in imagination the vessel as it begins to spread its 
sails to the breeze on the distant voyage. We see the devoted 
group — the grave husband, the anxious mother, the unconscious 
babe — as they crowd the deck to gaze for the last time upon 
the receding shore. The bright sun gilds the distant coast, and 
behind those vine-clad hills they yet behold their native woods, 
beloved friends, the soil that gave them birth, with the remem- 
brance of school-days and the joy of manhood. But soon they 
turn their vision to the blue heavens above them, arched by 
the span of hope, and with unwavering courage nerve their 
hearts to follow the appointments of their heavenly leader. 
The sufferings of the mind are worse than those of the body, 
yet this, all this, did our ancestors brave for freedom of con- 
science ; nay, more, perils by sea and land, with the sickening 
horror of hope deferred, the pangs of disappointment, and the 
untold miseries of colonization. 

We cast our eyes toward them in their new homes and watch 
the group. There, still, are the resolute husband, the brave- 
hearted matron, and the trembling infant sheltered in its mother's 
arms. Casting the eye through the opening forests, they behold, 
for the first time, the majestic oak. All is new, striking, grand ! 
Excited by the sublime exhibition of Nature's works, they fall 
upon the earth, and in tears of gratitude send up the first evan- 
gelical prayer ever offered in these wilds. 

From among the thousands who at this time fled from persecu- 
tion, South Carolina received a noble population, — the Marions, 
Horries, Legares, Laurens, De Saussures, Manigaults, Hugers, 
Porchers, Lessesnes, Prioleaus, Gaillards, Mazycks, Eavenels, Du- 
boses, Couturiers, St. Juliens, and other well-known names; a 
race of men gifted with every manly virtue, who have breathed 
a high-souled, chivalric spirit into Carolina character, and have 
added to her fame. May their memories be ever blessed for 
their fortitude and their wise resolve to bear that character un- 
stained to a land of spiritual freedom ! May no blight arise to 
retard our onward progress or to damp the moral energies of 
our people ! May generations yet unborn, in dwelling upon the 



90 PATRIOTIC READER. 

virtues of those who have gone before them, find something to 
respect and admire in the recollection of those times and names I 
May we acquire a character so distinguished for moral and 
mental beauty that in ages to come, when collected multitudes 
shall gather to commemorate the virtues of the fathers, there 
shall be no dark shade in the fair face of our being to break the 
bright moral view of the past ! 

William Cain Moragnb. 



THE FRIENDS IN NEW JERSEY. 

I have no time to-day to describe the rise of the Society of 
Friends. Considered only as a political event, and in its bearing 
upon the struggle for civil and religious liberty, it is a strange 
chapter in the history of progress, and it is one of the peculiar 
glories of those whom the world calls Quakers that without 
justice to their achievements such a history would be incom- 
plete. It was in the midst of the stormiest years of the civil 
war that George Fox, an humble shepherd youth from the fields 
of Nottingham, began his ministry. A mystery even to himself, 
and believing that he was divinely appointed, Fox went forth to 
preach to his countrymen the new gospel, founded on freedom 
of conscience, purity of life, and the equality of man. The 
times were ripe for such a mission. The public mind was like 
tinder, and the fire that came from the lips of the young en- 
thusiast set England in a blaze. The people flocked to hear him, 
and his enemies became alarmed. Here was not only a new 
religious creed, but a dangerous political doctrine. Here was an 
idea that, once embodied in a sect, would strike a blow at caste 
and privilege, and shake the very foundations of society. But 
nothing availed to tie the tongue of Fox or cool the fervor of 
his spirit. Threatened, fined, beaten, and imprisoned, he turned 
neither to the left hand nor to the right. 

At Cromwell's death the Quakers were already a numerous 
people. At the Restoration they had grown to dangerous pro- 
portions. Against them, therefore, was directed the vengeance 
of all parties and of every sect. Under all governments it was 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 91 

the same, and the Quaker met with even worse treatment from 
the Puritan government of New England than he had received 
from either the stern republican of Cromwell's time or the 
gay courtier of the Eestoration. Though his hand was lifted 
against no man, all men's hands were laid heavily on him. He 
was persecuted, but nowhere understood. His religion was 
called fanaticism, his frugality avarice, his simplicity ignorance, 
his piety hypocrisy, his freedom infidelity, his conscientiousness 
rebellion. 

But, though they fought no fight, they kept the faith. None 
can deny that they sought the faith with zeal, believed with 
sincerity, met danger with courage, and bore suffering with ex- 
traordinary fortitude. " They are a people," said the Protector, 
" whom I cannot win with gifts, honors, offices, or places." 

There were many reasons why our forefathers turned their 
eyes upon New Jersey. The unrelenting Puritan had shut in 
their faces the doors of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth 
Colony. New York had been appropriated by the Dutch, and 
the followers of Fox could find little sympathy among the 
settlers of the Old Dominion. He had travelled across New 
Jersey two or three years before. It is to be noticed that Penn's 
connection with the Quaker settlement of Burlington led to the 
founding of Pennsylvania. 

James II., in the year 1664, sold what is known as New Jersey 
to two of his friends, — Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley. 
Carteret planted settlements in Eastern Jersey, and the city of 
Elizabeth still perpetuates the name of his accomplished wife ; 
but as it was in Massachusetts, it was with Pennsylvania and 
the Jerseys. At last Berkeley, too old to realize his plans, offered 
the Province for sale. The opportunity was a rare one for the 
Quaker. Not alone for himself did the Pilgrim embark upon 
the Mayflower; not for himself alone did the Puritan seek a 
shelter on the bleak shores of Massachusetts ; not for himself 
alone did Eoger Williams gather his little colony at the head of 
Narragansett Bay; and the same faith that he was building in 
the wilderness a place of refuge for the oppressed forever, led 
the stern Quaker out of England. This was the faith that sus- 
tained them without a murmur through all the horrors of a New 
England winter ; that kept their courage up while the Connecti- 



92 PATRIOTIC READER. 

cut Valley rang with the war-whoop of the Indian ; that raised 
their fainting spirits beneath the scorching rays of a Southern 
sun ; that made them content and happy in the untrodden forests 
of New Jersey. 

Proud may we justly be, as Americans, of those who laid the 
foundations of our happiness. I know of no people who can 
point to a purer and less selfish ancestry; of no nation that 
looks back to a nobler or more honorable origin. The history 
of old Burlington has been a modest one, but full of those 
things which good men rejoice to find in the character of their 
ancestors; of a courage meek but dauntless, a self-sacrifice 
lowly but heroic, a wisdom humble and yet lofty, a love of 
humanity that nothing could quench, a devotion to liberty that 
was never shaken, an unfaltering and childlike faith in God.* 

Henry Armitt Brown. 



THE PILGRIM'S VISION. 

1 saw in the naked forest our scattered remnant cast, 
A screen of shivering branches between them and the blast ; 
The snow was falling round them, the dying fell so fast ; 
I looked to see them perish, when, lo I the vision passed. 

Again mine eyes were opened : the feeble had waxed strong, 
The babes had grown to sturdy men, the remnant was a throng ; 
By shadowed lake and winding stream, and all the shores along, 
The howling demons quaked, to hear the Christians' godly song. 

They slept, the village fathers, by rivers, lake, and shore, 
When far adown the steep of Time the vision rose once more ; 
I saw along the winter snow a spectral column pour, 
And high above their broken ranks a tattered flag they bore. 

* From address at Burlington, New Jersey, December 6, 1877, at the two- 
hundredth anniversary of its settlement by the passengers of the good ship 
Kent, who landed at Raccoon Creek, August 16, O.S., and laid out the town 
on Chygoe's Island, "towards y e latter part of y e 8th month, 1677." (By 
the courtesy of President Richard T. Mott, of the Burlington Library Com- 
pany, to which the author presented the copies of his address.) 



THE PATRIOTISM OF OUR FOUNDERS. 93 

Their leader rode before them, of bearing calm and high, 
The light of Heaven's own kindling throned in his awful eye ; 
These were the nation's champions, her dread appeal to try ! 
" God for the right !" I faltered, and, lo ! the train passed by. 

Once more : the strife was ended, the solemn issue tried ; 

The Lord of Hosts, His mighty arm, had helped our Israel's 

side; 
Gray stone and grassy hillock told where her martyrs died, 
And peace was in the borders of victory's chosen bride. 

A crash, as when some swollen cloud cracks o'er the tangled 

trees ! 
"With side to side, and spar to spar, whose smoking decks are 

these ? 
I know St. George's blood-red cross, thou mistress of the seas ; 
But what is she, whose streaming bars roll out before the 

breeze ? 

Ah ! well her iron ribs are knit, whose thunders strive to quell 
The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, that pealed the Armada's 

knell ! 
The mist was cleared ; a wreath of stars rose o'er the crimsoned 

swell, 
And wavering from its haughty peak, the cross of England fell ! 

trembling Faith ! though dark the morn, a heavenly torch is 

thine ! 
While feebler races melt away, and paler orbs decline, 
Still shall the fiery pillar's ray along thy pathway shine, 
To light the chosen tribe that sought this Western Palestine ! 

1 see the living tribe roll on ; it crowns with flaming towers 
The icy capes of Labrador, the Spaniard's " land of flowers ;" 
It streams beyond the splintered ridge that parts the northern 

showers, — 
From eastern rock to sunset wave the continent is ours. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



PART IV. 

AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In this age of immediate communication with all parts of 
the civilized world we are not surprised when some leading po- 
litical sentiment or sympathy is shared in common by different 
nations, nor even that inventions are so nearly simultaneous in 
different countries that the original inventor fails to receive full 
credit. Political revolutions are rarely the result of a single act 
of oppression or injustice, but the slow development of a passive 
or restless endurance of wrong which at last finds some special 
occasion for organized and open resistance. The war for Amer- 
ican independence was thus begun. 

The contemporary and nearly simultaneous utterances of the 
friends of America on both sides of the ocean were as significant 
of the coming issue, at the date of the battle of Lexington, as 
if the modern telegraph system had then been in use. Full 
accord in sympathy and sense of duty, quickened by the obsti- 
nacy of the British ministry, rendered any other result impos- 
sible. The speeches of Chatham, Wilkes, Fox, and Burke, in 
England, and those of Henry, Otis, Quincy, Warren, Lee, and 
the Adamses, in America, lose much of their significance unless 
it be remembered that at almost the same hour, and Avithout 
knowledge of passing events on the other side, the events them- 
selves were, in fact, anticipated. 

The lofty and pathetic appeal of Colonel Isaac Barre to the 
British Parliament in 1765, ten years before war began, was a 
solemn warning to Great Britain that her ingratitude to the 
colonies for their service in the French and Indian wars would 
certainly alienate her subjects and entitle them to the assertion 
94 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 95 

of their rights by force. His forecast of the future was so 
prophetic that as soon as armed resistance became inevitable, 
and actual, nearly all the colonial officers who had served in 
Canada or in the West Indies joined the American army be- 
fore Boston. Ward, Putnam, Spencer, Thomas, Schuyler, Mont- 
gomery, Stark, Wooster, Pomeroy, Gridley, and Prescott were 
among the veterans who thus espoused the cause of American 
independence. 

In 1766 Mr. Pitt followed the example of Colonel Barre, and 
in the responsive echo from America found new incentive to 
prosecute his patriotic labors ; until, at last, his very life went 
out in one final protest against continued war upon American 
rights. 

To combine or to alternate the British and American utter- 
ances of that period gives to the development of American in- 
dependence the easy flow of responsive readings, until, as early 
as 1780, Jonathan Mason boldly announced that "America 
already holds a seat among the nations." 

The speech of Edmund Burke on the 22d of March, and that 
of Patrick Henry on the 23d of March, 1775, so closely followed 
by the battle of Lexington, and the grand words of Eichard 
Henry Lee, shortly after, are coincident evidence that indepen- 
dence was assured before the first battle-conflict. 



INDEPENDENCE . 



Day of glory, welcome day, 
Freedom's banners greet thy ray ; 
See, how cheerfully they play 

With thy morning breeze, 
On the rocks where pilgrims kneeled, 
On the heights where squadrons wheeled, 
When a tyrant's thunder pealed 

O'er the trembling seas. 

God of armies, did thy " stars 
In their courses" smite his cars, 



96 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Blast his arm, and wrest his bars 

From the heaving tide ? 
On our standard, lo ! they burn, 
And, when days like this return, 
Sparkle o'er the soldier's urn 

"Who for freedom died. 

God of peace, whose spirit fills 
All the echoes of our hills, 
All the murmurs of our rills, 

Now the storm is o'er, 
Oh, let freemen be our sons, 
And let future Washingtons 
Eise, to lead their valiant ones, 

Till there's war no more. 

By the patriot's hallowed rest, 
By the warrior's gory breast, 
Never let our graves be pressed 

By a despot's throne ; 
By the pilgrims' toil and cares, 
By their battles and their prayers, 
By their ashes, let our heirs 

Bow to Thee alone. 

John Pierpont. 



INDEPENDENCE-DAY. 

The United States is the only country with a known birth- 
day. All the rest began, they know not when, and grew into 
power, they knew not how. If there had been no Indepen- 
dence-Day, England and America combined would not be so 
great as each actually is. There is no " Bepublican," no " Dem- 
ocrat," on the Fourth of July, — all are Americans. All feel that 
their country is greater than party. 

James Gillespie Blaine. 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 97 



GREAT BRITAIN NEGLECTS HER COLONIES. 

The year 1765 opened with the matured purpose of George 
Grenville — a brother-in-law of Lord Chatham, and then at the 
head of British affairs — to replenish the exhausted royal treasury 
through a special stamp tax and kindred impost duties at the 
expense of the American colonies. Charles Townshend, who 
had been Secretary of State for War under Mr. Pitt in 1761, 
became the First Lord of Trade in 1763, and shared none of 
Mr. Pitt's liberality toward tbe colonies when they came under 
his immediate control. Lord Macaulay says, — 

" Charles Townshend was a man of splendid talents, of lax 
principles, and of boundless vanity and presumption, who would 
submit to no control. He had always quailed before the genius 
and the lofty character of Pitt ; but when Pitt (becoming Lord 
Chatham) had quitted the House of Commons and seemed to 
have abdicated the part of chief minister, Townshend broke 
loose from all restraint." 

On the 7th of February, 1765, upon the introduction of the 
Stamp Act, he took occasion to charge the American colonists 
with ingratitude toward the mother-country, as follows : 

" And will these Americans, children planted by our care, 
nourished up by our indulgence, until they are grown to a 
degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, — 
will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the 
heavy weight of that burden which we lie under?" 

Colonel Isaac Barre, who served under Wolfe at Quebec, and 
knew the American character, replied, — 

" They planted by your care ? No. Your oppression planted 
them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then un- 
cultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed them- 
selves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is 
liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe the 
most subtle, and I will take it upon me to say the most for- 
midable, of any people upon the face of the earth ; and yet, 
actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hard- 
ships with pleasure compared with those they suffered in their 
own country from the hands of those who should have been 
their friends. 

7 



98 PATRIOTIC READER. 

"They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your 
neglect of them ! As soon as you began to care about them, 
that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, in one 
department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of 
deputies to some members of this House sent to spy out their 
liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them ; 
men whose behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of 
those sons of liberty to recoil within them ; men promoted to the 
highest seat of justice ; some who, to my knowledge, were glad, 
by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the 
bar of a court of justice in their own. 

" They protected by your arms ? They have nobly taken up 
arms in your defence ; have exerted a valor, amidst their con- 
stant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose 
frontier was drenched in blood while its interior parts yielded 
all its little savings to your emoluments. 

" And believe me — remember, I this day told you so — that the 
same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will 
accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to explain 
myself further. Heaven knows I do not at this time speak 
from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine 
sentiments of my heart. 

"However superior to me in general knowledge and expe- 
rience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to 
know more of America than most of you, having seen and been 
conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly 
loyal as any subjects the king has, but a people jealous of their 
liberties, and who will vindicate them, if ever they should be 
violated. But the subject is too delicate. I will say no more." 

Colonel Isaac Barre. 



GREAT BRITAIN WARNED OF HER DANGER. 

On the 17th of December, 1765, the British Parliament was 
summoned to take action upon tidings from the colonies of 
open resistance to the enforcement of the Stamp Act passed on 
the 22d of the previous March. The predictions of Colonel 
Barre, so solemnly announced at the time of its passage, had 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 99 

already become a matter of history. The earnest appeal of 
Lord Chatham on the 14th of January, 1766, was followed by 
the introduction of a bill, February 26, for the repeal of the 
Stamp Act. It was repealed, but accompanied by an act assert- 
ing the authority of the king and Parliament to make laws 
which should " bind the colonies and people of America in all 
cases whatsoever." When this " Declaratory Act" reached the 
House of Lords, Charles Pratt (Lord Camden), a school-mate 
of Pitt at Eton, endorsed Mr. Pitt's appeal in the Commons by 
these words : 

" My position is this ; I repeat it, I will retain it to the last 
hour: taxation and representation are inseparable. This posi- 
tion is founded on the laws of nature. It is more. It is in 
itself an eternal law of nature. For whatever is a man's own 
is absolutely his own. No man has a right to take it from him 
without his consent, either expressed by himself or by his repre- 
sentative. Whoever attempts to do this attempts an injury. 
Whoever does it commits a robbery. He throws down and 
destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery." 

The Declaratory Act was passed, and within one year new 
taxes were imposed under the direction of Charles Townshend, 
the advocate of the original Stamp Act, thereby hastening the 
colonists to open resistance. 

Lord Chatham's address contained the following appeal : 
Mr. Speaker, — 

The gentleman tells us that America is obstinate, — America 
is almost in open rebellion! I rejoice that America has re- 
sisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of 
liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been 
fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come here, not 
armed at all points, with the statute-book doubled down in dog's- 
ears, to defend the cause of liberty. I would not debate a par- 
ticular point of law with the gentleman. But for the defence 
of liberty upon a general principle, upon a constitutional princi- 
ple, it is a ground upon which I stand firm, on which I dare 
meet any man. There were not wanting some, when I had the 
honor to serve his Majesty, to propose to me to burn my fingers 
with an American stamp act. With the enemy at their back, 
with our bayonets at their breasts, in the day of their distress, 
perhaps the Americans would have submitted to the imposition ; 

L. Of % . 



100 PATRIOTIC READER. 

but it would have been taking an ungenerous, an unjust advan- 
tage. I am no courtier of America. I stand up for the king- 
dom. When two countries are connected together like England 
and her colonies, without being incorporated, the one must 
necessarily govern. The greater must rule the less. But she 
must so rule it as not to contradict the fundamental principles 
that are common to both. The gentleman asks, " When were 
the colonies emancipated ?" I desire to know, when were they 
made slaves ? The profits to Great Britain from the trade of 
the colonies through all its branches is two millions a year. 
This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last 
war. You owe this to America. This is the price America 
pays you for her protection. And shall a miserable financier 
come with a boast that he can bring a " pepper-com" into the 
exchequer by the loss of millions to the nation ? 

A great deal has been said, without-doors, of the power, of the 
strength, of America. It is a topic that ought to be cautiously 
meddled with. In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of 
this country can crush America to atoms. But on this ground, 
on the Stamp Act, I am one who will lift up my hands against it. 
In such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if 
she fell, would fall like the strong man ; she would embrace the 
pillars of the state and pull down the constitution along with her. 

Is this your boasted peace, not to sheathe the sword in its 
scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen ? 
The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and 
temper; they have been wronged, they have been driven to 
madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness 
which you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper 
come first from this side. I will undertake for America that 
she will follow the example. 

There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior 
to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot 
help repeating them : 

" Be to her faults a little blind ; 
Be to her virtues very kind." 

I will beg leave to tell the House what is my opinion. It is 
that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and imme- 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 101 

diately. Let the reason for the repeal be assigned that "the 
Act was founded upon an erroneous principle." At the same 
time bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise 
every power whatsoever except that of taking money out of 
their pockets without their consent. 

William Pitt (Lord Chatham). 



AMERICA RESENTS BRITISH DICTATION. 

During the agitation of 1765 concerning the British Stamp 
Act, a convention of its opponents was assembled in New York 
City under the name of " The Stamp-Act Congress." Among 
the most conspicuous of the delegates from the Massachusetts 
Colony was James Otis. As early as 1761 he protested so ear- 
nestly against permitting the British officers of the customs to 
have " writs of assistance" in their enforcement of the British 
revenue laws, that John Adams, who listened to his argument, 
thus describes it : 

" Otis was a flame of fire ! With a promptitude of classical 
allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical 
events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic 
glance of his eye into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous 
eloquence, he hurried away all before him. Every man of an 
immense audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready 
to take up arms against any 'writs of assistance.' " 

The all-absorbing sentiment of his life, the wealth of his dic- 
tion, and the fire of his oratory have been embodied in a form 
which stands among the best of American classics. In the ro- 
mance of " The Bebels," Miss Lydia Maria Francis (afterwards 
Mrs. Child) introduces James Otis as a leading character. After 
the opening statement, that "there was hurrying to and fro 
through the streets of Boston on the night of the 14th of Au- 
gust, 1765," this patriotic American woman shows such a right 
conception of the power and oratory of Otis, as well as of the 
actual tone and spirit of his times, that the fragments of her 
hero's conversation during the story, gathered in the form of 



102 PATRIOTIC READER. 

a speech, have often been mistaken for some actual appeal to 
the people of his period. The youth of America will do well 
to keep it fresh in mind, and thereby honor both its author 
and its subject. 

JAMES OTIS IN 1765. 

" England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with 
bulrushes as to fetter the steps of Freedom, more proud and 
firm in this youthful land than where she treads the seques- 
tered glens of Scotland or couches herself among the magnifi- 
cent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like those 
against which we now contend, have cost one king of England 
his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his 
most flourishing colonies. 

"We are two millions, one-fifth fighting-men. We are bold 
and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the nation from 
whom we are proud to derive our origin we ever were, and we 
ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance ; but it must not, 
and it never can be, extorted. 

" Some have sneeringly asked, ( Are the Americans too poor 
to pay a few pounds on stamped paper ?' No ! America, thanks 
to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds 
implies the right to take a thousand ; and what must be the 
wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, 
the spectre is now small ; but the shadow he casts before him is 
huge enough to darken all this fair land. 

" Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of 
gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount 
of this debt ? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion 
owes to the dam which has brought it forth on the solitude of 
the mountain, or left it amid the winds and storms of the desert. 

" We plunged into the wave, with the great charter of freedom 
in our teeth, because the fagot and torch were behind us. We 
have waked this new world from its savage lethargy ; forests 
have been prostrated in our path ; towns and cities have grown 
up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics ; and the fires in our 
autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase of 
our wealth and population. 

" And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother- 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 103 

country ? No ; we owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her ; 
to the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy ! 

" But perhaps others will say, ' We ask no money from your 
gratitude ; we only demand that you should pay your own ex- 
penses.' And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity ? Why, 
the king ! (And, with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, 
he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as little as 
he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge con- 
cerning the frequency of these demands ? The ministry. Who 
is to judge whether the money is properly expended? The 
cabinet behind the throne. 

" In every instance, those who take are to judge for those 
who pay. If this system is suffered to go into operation, we 
shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege that rain and 
dew do not depend upon Parliament ; otherwise, they would soon 
be taxed and dried. 

" But, thanks to God I there is freedom enough left upon earth 
to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is ex- 
tinguished in Greece and Eome, but the light of its glowing 
embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. 
Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto death. 

" But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The 
wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their 
enemies shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it may be 
well for some proud men to remember that a fire is lighted in 
these colonies which one breath of their king may kindle into 
such fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it." 

Lydia Maria Child. 



THE REPEAL OP OBNOXIOUS LAWS DEMANDED. 

In March, 1774, Massachusetts was deprived of her charter, 
and the port of Boston was closed to commerce. On the 27th 
of May Lord Chatham denounced a measure providing for 
quartering troops on the people of Boston, and ridiculed the 
alleged precautions growing out of the destruction of a cargo 
of tea on the night of December 18, 1773. On the 9th of 



104 PATRIOTIC READER. 

April Edmund Burke followed iu a severe arraignment of the 
British ministry for insisting upon its odious and unjust system 
of taxation. 

The year 1775 opened with a thorough accord in sentiment 
on the part of the friends of America on both sides of the 
ocean. The first Congress, or Conference, at Philadelphia, in 
1774, had aroused the admiration of Lord Chatham, and on the 
20th of January, 1775, he honored it with his praise, and de- 
manded the repeal of all oppressive acts, as well as the removal 
of the garrison from Boston. 

(Mr. Pitt, in Parliament, January 20, 1775.) 

"When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from 
America, when you consider their firmness, decency, and wisdom, 
you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your 
own. For myself, I must affirm, declare, and avow that, in all 
my reading and observation (and it has been my favorite study, 
for I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the 
master-states of the world), I say, I must declare that, for 
solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclu- 
sion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no 
nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General 
Congress at Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your lordships 
that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish 
despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, 
must be fatal. 

We shall be forced, ultimately, to retract. Let us retract 
while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily 
undo these violent, oppressive acts. They must be repealed. 
You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it that you will, 
in the end, repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will 
consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. 

Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. With a 
dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances 
to concord, to peace and happiness ; for it is for your true dig- 
nity to act with prudence and justice. That you should first 
concede, is obvious from sound and rational policy. Concession 
comes with better grace and more salutary effects from superior 
power. It reconciles superiority of power with the feelings 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 105 

of men, and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of 
affection and gratitude. 

Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity 
and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America by 
a removal of your troops from Boston ; by a repeal of your Acts 
of Parliament ; and by demonstration of an amiable, amicable 
disposition towards your colonies. On the other hand, every 
danger and every hazard impend to deter you from perseve- 
rance in your present ruinous measures. Foreign war hangs 
over your heads by a slight and brittle thread. France and 
Spain watch your conduct and wait for the maturity of your 
errors with a vigilant eye to America, and the temper of your 
colonies, more than to their own concerns, be they what they 
may. 

To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in mis- 
advising and misleading the king, I will not say that they can 
alienate the affections of his subjects from the crown, but I 
will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wear- 
ing ; I will not say that the king is betrayed, but I will pro- 
nounce that the kingdom is undone. 

William Pitt (Loed Chatham). 



REMOVAL OP THE BOSTON GARRISON DEMANDED. 
(Mr. Pitt, in Parliament, January 20, 1775.) 

My Lords, — 

These papers, brought to your table at so late a period of this 
business, tell us what ? Why, what all the world knew before : 
that the Americans, irritated by repeated injuries, and stripped 
of their inborn rights and dearest privileges, have resisted, and 
entered into associations for the preservation of their common 
liberties. 

Had the early situation of the people of Boston been attended 
to, things would not have come to this. But the infant complaints 
of Boston were literally treated like the capricious squalls of a 
child, who, it was said, did not know whether it was aggrieved 
or not. 



106 PATEIOTIC READER. 

But full well I knew, at that time, that this child, if not 
redressed, would soon assume the courage and voice of a man. 
Full well I knew that the sons of ancestors, born under the same 
free constitution and once breathing the same liberal air as Eng- 
lishmen, would resist upon the same principles and on the same 
occasions. 

What has government done ? They have sent an armed force, 
consisting of seventeen thousand men, to dragoon the Bostonians 
into what is called their duty ; and, so far from once turning their 
eyes to the policy and destructive consequence of this scheme, 
are constantly sending out more troops. And we are told, in the 
language of menace, that if seventeen thousand men won't do, 
fifty thousand shall. 

It is true, my lords, with this force they may ravage the 
country, waste and destroy as they march ; but, in the progress 
of fifteen hundred miles, can they occupy the places they have 
passed ? Will not a country which can produce three millions 
of people, wronged and insulted as they are, start up like hydras 
in every corner, and gather fresh strength from fresh opposition ? 

Nay, what dependence can you have upon the soldiery, the 
unhappy engines of your wrath ? They are Englishmen, who 
must feel for the privileges of Englishmen. Do you think that 
these men can turn their arms against their brethren ? Surely 
no. A victory must be to them a defeat, and carnage a sacrifice. 

But it is not merely three millions of people, the produce of 
America, we have to contend with in this unnatural struggle ; 
many more are on their side, dispersed over the face of this 
wide empire. Every Whig in this country and in Ireland is 
with them. 

In this alarming crisis I come with this paper in my hand to 
offer you the best of my experience and advice ; which is, that 
a humble petition be presented to his Majesty, beseeching him 
that, in order to open the way towards a happy settlement of 
the dangerous troubles in America, it may graciously please 
him that immediate orders be given to General Gage for re- 
moving his Majesty's forces frorn the town of Boston. 

Such conduct will convince America that you mean to try her 
cause in the spirit of freedom and inquiry, and not in letters of 
blood. 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 107 

There is no time to be lost. Every hour is big with danger. 
Perhaps, while I am now speaking, the decisive blow is struck 
which may involve millions in the consequence. And, believe 
me, the very first drop of blood which is shed will cause a 
wound which may never be healed. 

William Pitt (Lord Chatham). 



CONCILIATION OR WAR. 

(Mr. Burke, in Parliament, March 22, 1775.) 

We are called again, as it were by a superior warning voice, 
to attend to America, and to review the subject with an unusual 
degree of calmness. Surely it is an awful subject, or there is 
none this side the grave. The proposition is peace ; not peace 
hunted through the medium of war, but peace sought in its 
natural course, in its ordinary haunts, and laid in principles 
purely pacific. I propose to restore the former unsuspecting 
confidence of the colonies in the mother-country, and reconcile 
them each to each. My hold of the colonies is in the close 
affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, 
from similar privileges and equal protection. These are ties 
which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. 

Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights 
associated with your government ; they will cling and grapple 
to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them 
from their allegiance. But let it once be understood that your 
government may be one thing and their privileges another ; that 
these two things may exist without any mutual relation ; the 
cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened, and everything has- 
tens to decay and dissolution. 

As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign author- 
ity of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple 
consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and 
sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces 
towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you 
will have. The more ardently they love liberty, the more per- 
fect will be their obedience. 



108 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in 
every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it 
from Prussia. But until you become lost to all feelings of youi 
true interest and your national dignity, freedom they can have 
from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which 
you have the monopoly. 

This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the 
commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the 
wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, 
and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must 
still preserve, the unity of the empire. 

Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers 
and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your 
cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities 
of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, 
and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the 
things that hold together the great contexture of this mys- 
terious whole. 

These things do not make your government, dead instruments, 
passive tools as they are ; it is the spirit of the English consti- 
tution that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the 
spirit of the English constitution which, infused through the 
mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every 
part of the empire, even down to the minutest member. 

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in 
England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land tax which 
raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in the committee 
of supply which gives you your army ? or that it is the mutiny 
bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline ? 

No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people, it is their attach- 
ment to their government from the sense of the deep stake they 
have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 
and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience 
without which your army would be a base rabble and your 
navy nothing but rotten timber. 

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical 
to the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians 
who have no place among us ; a sort of people who think that 
nothing exists but what is gross and material, and who, there- 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 109 

fore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great move- 
ment of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. 

But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and 
master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have 
mentioned have no substantial existence, are, in truth, every- 
thing and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the 
truest wisdom, and a great empire and little minds go ill to- 
gether. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with 
zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we 
ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America with 
the old warning of the church, Sursum corda I* We ought to 
elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the 
order of Providence has called us. 

By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors 
have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and 
have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests, 
not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, 
the happiness, of the human race. 

Edmund Burke. 



"WAR IS ACTUALLY BEGUN." 

(Mr. Henry, in the Convention of Delegates of Virginia, March 23, 1775, 
urges that the colony be immediately put in a state of defence.) 

This, sir, is no time for ceremony. The question before the 
house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own 
part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or 
slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject 
ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way 
that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great respon- 
sibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep 
back my opinions at this time through fear of giving offence, 
I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my coun- 
try and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, 
which I revere above all earthly kings. 

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions 

* Let your hearts rise upward ! 



110 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, 
and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into 
beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in a great and 
arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the 
number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, 
hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal sal- 
vation ? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, 
I am willing to know the whole truth ; to know the worst, and 
to provide for it. 

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is 
the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the 
future but by the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know 
what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the 
last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have 
been pleased to solace themselves and the house ? Is it that in- 
sidious smile with which our petition has been lately received ? 
Trust it not, sir ; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not 
yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this 
gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike 
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. 

Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and recon- 
ciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be recon- 
ciled that force must be called in to win back our love ? Let us 
not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and 
subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask, 
sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force 
us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible 
motive for it ? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of 
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies ? 
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us ; they can be 
meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon 
us those chains which the British ministry have been so long 
forging. 

And what have we to oppose them ? Shall we try argument ? 
Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we 
anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. "We have 
held the subject up in every light of which it is capable, but it 
has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble 
supplication ? What terms shall we find which have not been 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. Ill 

already exhausted ? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive our- 
selves longer. 

Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the 
storm that is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have 
remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves 
before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest 
the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our peti- 
tions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced 
additional violence and insult ; our supplications have been dis- 
regarded, and we have been spumed with contempt from the 
foot of the throne. 

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of 
peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. 
If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those 
inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contend- 
ing, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in 
which we have been so long engaged, and which we have 
pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of 
our contest shall be obtained, we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, 
we must fight I An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is 
all that is left us ! 

******** 

They tell us, sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so for- 
midable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it 
be the next week, or the next year ? Will it be when we are 
totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in 
every house ? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and in- 
action ? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by 
lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom 
of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot ? 
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means 
which the Gk>d of nature hath placed in our power. 

Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, 
and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible 
by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, 
sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who 
presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up 
friends to fight our battles for us. 

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, 



112 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we 
were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from 
the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! 
Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the 
plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I 
repeat it, sir, let it come ! 

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may 
cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually 
begun ! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring 
to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are 
already in the field ! Why stand we here idle ? What is it that 
gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, or 
peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and 
slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course 
others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! 

Patrick Henry. 



PAUL RBVBRE'S RIDE. 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, • 
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five : 
Hardly a man is now alive 
Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, " If the British march 
By land or sea from the town to-night, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower, as a signal-light, — 
One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 
And I on the opposite shore will be, 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
For the country-folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, "Good-night!" and with muffled oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 113 

Just as the moon rose over the bay, 

Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay 

The Somerset, British man-of-war, — 

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 

Across the moon like a prison bar, 

And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified 

By its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 
Till, in the silence around him, he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 

Then he climbed to the tower of the Old North Church, 

By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 

To the belfry chamber overhead, 

And startled the pigeons from their perch 

On the sombre rafters, that round him made 

Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 

To the highest window in the wall, 

Where he paused to listen, and look down 

A moment on the roofs of the town, 

And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead 
In their night encampment on the hill, 
Wrapped in silence so deep and still 
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, 
The watchful night-wind, as it went, 
Creeping along from tent to tent, 
And seeming to whisper, " All is well I" 
A moment only he feels the spell 
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread 
Of the lonely belfry and the dead, 
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 
8 



114 PATRIOTIC READER. 

On a shadowy something far away, 
Where the river widens to meet the bay, — 
A line of black, that bends and floats 
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Eevere. 
Now he patted his horse's side, 
Now gazed on the landscape far and near, 
Then impetuous stamped the earth, . 
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth ; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 

And lo I as he looks, on the belfry's height, 
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns. 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet : 

That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and the light, 

The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, 

Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 

* * :;: * * * * 

It was twelve by the village clock 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer's dog, 

And felt the damp of the river-fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 115 

It was one by the village clock 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 

As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock 

"When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 

And felt the breath of the morning breeze 

Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 

Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 

Who that day would be lying dead, 

Pierced by a British musket-ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have read 
How the British regulars fired and fled, — 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 



So through the night rode Paul Eevere ; 

And so through the night went his cry of alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm, — 

A cry of defiance, and not of fear, — 

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 

And a word that shall echo for evermore ! 

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 

Through all our history, to the last, 



116 PATRIOTIC READER. 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 
The people will waken and listen to hear 
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 
And the midnight message of Paul Eevere. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, APRIL 17, 1775. 

No Berserk* thirst of blood had they, 

No battle-joy was theirs, who set 

Against the alien bayonet 
Their homespun breasts in that old day. 

****** 

Swift as their summons came they left 
The plough mid-furrow standing still, 
The half-ground corn-grist in the mill, 

The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. 

They went where duty seemed to call, 
They scarcely asked the reason why ; 
They only knew they could but die, 

And death was not the worst of all. 

****** 

Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, 
And shattered slavery's chain as well ; 
On the sky's dome, as on a bell, 

Its echo struck the world's great hour. 

That fateful echo is not dumb ; 
The nations, listening to its sound, 
Wait, from a century's vantage-ground, 

The holier triumphs yet to come ; 

The bridal-time of Law and Love, 
The gladness of the world's release, 
When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace 

The hawk shall nestle with the dove ; 

* Berserk, or Bar-sark, Icelandic name for " careless bravo or freebooter. 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED, 117 

The golden age of brotherhood 

Unknown to other rivalries 

Than of the mild humanities, 
And gracious interchange of good, 

When closer strand shall lean to strand, 

Till meet, beneath saluting flags, 

The eagle of our mountain crags, 
The lion of our mother-land. 

John Greenleaf Whittier. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM. 

Darkness closed upon the country and upon the town, but it 
was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses trans- 
mitted the war-message from hand to hand, till village repeated 
it to village ; the sea to the backwoods ; the plains to the high- 
lands ; and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne 
North, and South, and East, and West, throughout the land. 

It spread over the bays that receive the Saco and the Penob- 
scot. Its loud reveille broke the rest of the trappers of New 
Hampshire, and, ringing like bugle-notes from peak to peak, 
overleapt the Green Mountains, swept onward to Montreal, and 
descended the' ocean river, till the responses were echoed from 
the cliffs of Quebec. The hills along the Hudson told to one 
another the tale. 

As the summons hurried to the South, it was one day at New 
York ; in one more at Philadelphia ; the next it lighted a watch- 
fire at Baltimore ; thence it waked an answer at Annapolis. 
Crossing the Potomac near Mount Vernon, it was sent forward 
without a halt to Williamsburg. It traversed the Dismal Swamp 
to Nansemond, along the route of the first emigrants to North 
Carolina. It moved onwards and still onwards, through bound- 
less groves of evergreen, to New-Berne and to Wilmington. 

" For God's sake, forward it by night and by day," wrote Cor- 
nelius Harnett, by the express which sped for Brunswick. Pa- 
triots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border and 
despatched it to Charleston, and through pines and palmettos 



118 PATRIOTIC READER. 

and moss-clad live-oaks, farther to the South, till it resounded 
among the New England settlements beyond Savannah. 

The Blue Eidge took up the voice, and made it heard from 
one end to the other of the valley of Virginia. The Allegha- 
nies, as they listened, opened their barriers, that the " loud call" 
might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the 
Watauga, and the French Broad. Ever renewing its strength, 
powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed 
its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky; so that 
hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the 
Elkhorn commemorated the 19th day of April, 1776, by naming 
their encampment Lexington. 

With one impulse the colonies sprung to arms ; with one 
spirit they pledged themselves to each other " to be ready for 
the extreme event." With one 'heart the continent cried, "Lib- 
erty or Death 1" 

George Bancroft. 



THE RISING IN 1776. 

Out of the North the wild news came, 
Far flashing on its wings of flame, 
Swift as the boreal light which flies 
At midnight through the startled skies. 

And there was tumult in the air, 

The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, 
And through the wide land everywhere 

The answering tread of hurrying feet ; 
While the first oath of Freedom's gun 
Came on the blast from Lexington ; 
And Concord, roused, no longer tame, 
Forgot her old baptismal name, 
Made bare her patriot arm of power, 
And swelled the discord of the hour. 
****** 

Within its shade of elm and oak 

The church of Berkley Manor stood ; 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 119 

There Sunday found the rural folk, 

And some esteemed of gentle blood. 
In vain their feet, with loitering tread, 

Passed 'mid the graves where rank is naught : 

All could not read the lesson taught 
In that republic of the dead. 

How sweet the hour of Sabbath talk, 

The vale with peace and sunshine full, 
Where all the happy people walk, 

Decked in their homespun flax and wool ! 
Where youths' gay hats with blossoms bloom ; 

And every maid, with simple art, 

Wears on her breast, like her own heart, 
A bud whose depths are all perfume ; 
While every garment's gentle stir 
Is breathing rose and lavender. 
****** 
The pastor came : his snowy locks 

Hallowed his brow of thought and care ; 
And calmly, as shepherds lead their flocks, 

He led into the house of prayer. 

The pastor rose ; the prayer was strong ; 
The psalm was warrior David's song ; 
The text, a few short words of might, — 
" The Lord of hosts shall arm the right !" 

He spoke of wrongs too long endured, 
Of sacred rights to be secured ; 
Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
The startling words for Freedom came. 
The stirring sentences he spake 
Compelled the heart to glow or quake, 
And, rising on his theme's broad wing, 

And grasping in his nervous hand 

The imaginary battle-brand, 
In face of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king. 



120 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Even as he spoke, his frame, renewed, 
In eloquence of attitude, 
Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher ; 
Then swept his kindling glance of fire 
From startled pew to breathless choir ; 
When suddenly his mantle wide 
His hands impatient flung aside, 
And, lo ! he met their wondering eyes 
Complete in all a warrior's guise. 

A moment there was awful pause, — 

When Berkley cried, " Cease, traitor ! cease ! 

God's temple is the house of peace !" 

The other shouted, " Nay, not so, 
When God is with our righteous cause ; 
His holiest places then are ours, 
His temples are our forts and towers 

That frown upon the tyrant foe ; 
In this, the dawn of Freedom's day, 
There is a time to fight and pray!" 

And now before the open door — 

The warrior-priest had ordered so — 
The enlisting trumpet's sudden roar 
Eang through the chapel, o'er and o'er, 

Its long-reverberating blow, 
So loud and clear, it seemed the ear 
Of dusty death must wake and hear. 
And there the startling drum and fife 
Fired the living with fiercer life ; 
While overhead, with wild increase, 
Forgetting its ancient toll of peace, 

The great bell swung as ne'er before. 
It seemed as it would never cease ; 
And every word its ardor flung 
From off its jubilant iron tongue 

Was, " War ! War ! War !" 

"Who dares?" — this was the patriot's cry, 
As striding from the desk he came. — 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 121 

" Come out with me, in Fi-eedom's name, 
For her to live, for her to die ?" 
A hundred hands flung up reply, 
A hundred voices answered, "77" 

Thomas Buchanan Read. 



THE BATTLE OP BUNKER HILL. 

(Extract from " Battles of the American Revolution.") 

The advance of the British army was like a solemn pageant 
in its steady headway, and like a parade for inspection in the 
completeness of its outfit. It moved forward as if by the very 
force of its closely-knit columns it must sweep away every bar- 
rier in its path. Elated, sure of victory, with firm step, already 
quickened as the space of separation lessens, there is left but a 
few rods of interval, a few steps only, and the work is done ! But 
right in their way was a calm, intense, and energizing love of lib- 
erty, represented by men of the same blood and of equal daring. 

A few shots impulsively fired, but quickly restrained, drew 
an innocent fire from the advancing column. But the pale men 
behind the scant defence, obedient to one will, answered not ; and 
nothing to the audible commands of the advancing mass, — wait- 
ing still. The left wing is near the redoubt. It surely is nothing 
to surmount a bank of fresh earth but six feet high ; and its 
sands and clods can almost be counted, it is so near, so easy, 
sure ! Short, crisp, and earnest, low-toned, but felt as an electric 
pulse from redoubt to river, are the words of a single man, 
Prescott. Warren, by his side, repeats them. The word runs 
quickly along the inpatient line. The eager fingers give back 
from the waiting trigger. " Steady, men ! Wait until you see 
the white of the eye ! Not a shot sooner ! Aim at the hand- 
some coats ! Aim at the waistbands ! Pick off the officers ! 
Wait for the word, every man ! Steady !" 

Already those plain men, so patient, can count the buttons, 
can read the emblems on the belt-plate, can recognize the officers 
and men whom they have seen at parade on Boston Common. 
Features grow more and more distinct. The silence is awful ! 



122 PATRIOTIC READER. 

These men seem breathless, — dead I It comes, that word, the 
word waited for, — " Fire !" That word had waited behind the 
centre and the left wing, where Putnam watched, as it lingered 
behind breastwork and redoubt. Sharp, clear, and deadly, in 
tone and essence, it rings forth, — " Fire !" 

From redoubt to river, along the whole sweep of devouring 
flame, the forms of men wither as in a furnace heat. The 
whole front goes down. For an instant the chirp of the grass- 
hopper and the cricket in the freshly-cut grass might almost be 
heard ; then the groans of the suffering ; then the shouts of im- 
patient yeomen, who leap over obstacles to pursue, until recalled 
to silence and to duty. 

Staggering but reviving, grand in the glory of their manhood, 
heroic in the fortitude which restores self-possession, with a 
steady step, in the face of fire and over the bodies of their dead, 
the remnant dare to renew battle. Again the deadly vollej^ ; and 
the shattered columns, in spite of entreaty or command, move 
back to the place of starting, and the first shock of battle is over. 

A lifetime when it is past seems but as a moment. A moment 
sometimes is as a lifetime. Onset and repulse I Three hundred 
lifetimes ended in twenty minutes 1 



INDEPENDENCE BELL, PHILADELPHIA. 

Inscription, " Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants 
thereof." July 4, 1776. 

There was a tumult in the city, 

In the quaint old Quaker town, 
And the streets were rife with people 

Pacing restless up and down, — 
People gathering at corners, 

Where they whispered each to each, 
And the sweat stood on their temples 

With the earnestness of speech. 

As the bleak Atlantic currents 

Lash the wild Newfoundland shore, 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 123 

So they beat against the State-House, 

So they surged against the door ; 
And the mingling of their voices 

Made a harmony profound, 
Till the quiet street of Chestnut 

"Was all turbulent with sound. 

" Will they do it ?" " Dare they do it ?" 

" Who is speaking ?" " What's the news ?" 
" What of Adams ?" " What of Sherman ?" 

" Oh, God grant they won't refuse !" 
" Make some way, there !" " Let me nearer !" 

" I am stifling !" " Stifle, then ! 
When a nation's life's at hazard, 

We've no time to think of men !" 

So they beat against the portal, 

Man and woman, maid and child ; 
And the July sun in heaven 

On the scene looked down and smiled : 
The same sun that saw the Spartan 

Shed his patriot blood in vain, 
Now beheld the soul of freedom, 

All unconquered, rise again. 

See ! See ! The dense crowd quivers 

Through all its lengthy line, 
As the boy beside the portal 

Looks forth to give the sign ! 
With his little hands uplifted, 

Breezes dallying with his hair, 
Hark ! with deep, clear intonation, 

Breaks his young voice on the air. 

Hushed the people's swelling murmur, 

List the boy's exultant cry ! 
u Ring f he shouts, "ring! grandpa, 

Ring ! oh, ring for Liberty!" 
Quickly at the given signal 

The old bell-man lifts his hand, 



124 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Forth he sends the good news, making 
Iron music through the land. 

How they shouted ! What rejoicing ! 

How the old bell shook the air, 
Till the clang of freedom ruffled 

The calmly gliding Delaware ! 
How the bonfires and the torches 

Lighted up the night's repose, 
And from the flames, like fabled Phoenix, 

Our glorious Liberty arose ! 

That old State-House bell is silent, 

Hushed is now its clamorous tongue ; 
But the spirit it awakened 

Still is living, — ever young ; 
And when we greet the smiling sunlight 

On the Fourth of each July, 
We Avill ne'er forget the bell-man 

Who, betwixt the earth and sky, 
Rung out, loudly, "Independence;" 

Which, please God, shall never die! 

Anonymous. 



INDEPENDENCE A SOLEMN DUTY. 

The time will certainly come when the fated separation be- 
tween the mother-country and these colonies must take place, 
whether you will or no, for it is so decreed by the very nature 
of things, by the progressive increase of our population, the 
fertility of our soil, the extent of our territory, the industry of 
our countrymen, and the immensity of the ocean which sepa- 
rates the two countries. And if this be true, as it is most true, 
who does not see that the sooner it takes place t\m better? — that 
it would be the height of folly not to seize the present occasion, 
when British injustice has filled all hearts Avith indignation, in- 
spired all minds with courage, united all opinions in one, and 
put arms in every hand ? And how long must we traverse three 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 125 

thousand miles of a stormy sea to solicit of arrogant and inso- 
lent men either counsel, or commands to regulate our domestic 
affairs? From what we have already achieved it is easy to 
presume what we shall hereafter accomplish. Experience is the 
source of sage counsels, and liberty is the mother of great men. 
Have you not seen the enemy driven from Lexington by citizens 
armed and assembled in one day? Already their most cele- 
brated generals have yielded in Boston to the skill of ours. 
Already their seamen, repulsed from our coasts, wander over 
the ocean, the sport of tempests and the prey of famine. Let 
us hail the favorable omen, and fight, not for the sake of know- 
ing on what terms we are to be the slaves of England, but to 
secure to ourselves a free existence, to found a just and inde- 
pendent government. 

Why do we longer delay? why still deliberate? Let this 
most happy day give birth to the American Republic. Let her 
arise, not to devastate and conquer, but to re-establish the reign 
of peace and the laws. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us ; 
she demands of us a living example of freedom that may con- 
trast, by the felicity of her citizens, with the ever-increasing 
tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to 
prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace and the 
persecuted repose. She entreats us to cultivate a propitious 
soil, where that generous plant which first sprang up and grew 
in England, but is now withered by the poisonous blasts of 
Scottish tyranny, may revive and flourish, sheltering under its 
salubrious and interminable shade all the unfortunate of the 
human race. This is the end presaged by so many omens ; by 
our first victories ; by the present ardor and union ; by the 
flight of Howe, and the pestilence which broke out among Dun- 
more's people ; by the very winds which baffled the enemy's fleets 
and transports, and that terrible tempest which engulfed seven 
hundred vessels upon the coast of Newfoundland. 

If we are not this day wanting in our duty to our country, 
the names of the American legislators will be placed, by pos- 
terity, at the side of those of Theseus, of Lycurgus, of Romu- 
lus, of Numa, of the three Williams of Nassau, and of all those 
whose memory has been and will be forever dear to virtuous 
men and good citizens. Kichard Henry Lee. 



126 PATEIOTIC READER. 



INDEPENDENCE EXPLAINED. 

(Delivered in Philadelphia, August 1, 1776, twenty-seven days after the 
Declaration of Independence.) 

My countrymen, from the day on which an accommodation 
takes place between England and America on any other terms 
than as independent States, I shall date the ruin of this country. 
"We are now, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of 
souls united in one common cause. This day we are called on 
to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men 
wei-e rejoiced to view only in speculation. This day presents 
the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever 
unfolded, — millions of freemen voluntarily and deliberately form- 
ing themselves into a society for their common defence and 
common happiness. Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and 
Sidney! will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold 
your posterity rising to the dignity of men — evincing to the 
world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the 
actual enjoyment of that equal liberty which you were happy 
when on earth in delineating and recommending to mankind ? 

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors ; some 
are indebted for a constitution to the sufferings of their ances- 
tors through revolving centuries; the people of this country 
alone have formally and deliberately chosen a government for 
themselves, and, with open, uninfluenced consent, bound them- 
selves into a social compact. And, fellow-countrymen, if ever 
it was granted to mortals to trace the designs of Providence 
and interpret its manifestations in favor of their cause, we may, 
with humility of soul, cry out, Not unto us, not unto us, but 
to Thy name be the praise. The confusion of the devices of 
our enemies, and the rage of the elements against them, have 
done almost as much towards our success as either our counsels 
or our arms. 

The time at which this attempt on our liberties was made, — 
when we were ripened into maturity, had acquired a knowledge 
of war, and were free from the incursions of intestine enemies, 
— the gradual advances of our oppressors, enabling us to pre- 
pare for our defence, tbe unusual fertility of our lands, the 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 127 

clemency of the seasons, the success which at first attended our 
feeble arms, producing unanimity among our friends and com- 
pelling our internal foes to acquiescence, — these are all strong 
and palpable marks and assurances that Providence is yet gra- 
cious UNTO ZlON, THAT IT WILL TURN AWAY THE CAPTIVITY OP 

Jacob ! Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom 
of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of con- 
science direct their course to this happy country as their last 
asylum. Let us cherish the noble guests ! Let us shelter them 
under the wings of universal toleration! Be this the seat of 
unbounded Eeligious Freedom ! She will bring with her in 
her train, Industry, Wisdom, and Commerce. 

Our union is now complete. You have in the field armies 
sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies. The hearts 
of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom. Go on, 
then, in your generous enterprise, with gratitude to heaven for 
past success, and confidence of it in the future ! For my own 
part, I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the com- 
mon danger and the common glory. If I have a wish dearer to 
my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a 
Warren and a Montgomery, it is, that these American States 

MAY NEVER CEASE TO BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT ! 

Samuel Adams. 



GREAT BRITAIN MUST YIELD, OR LOSE AMERICA. 

(Mr. Pitt, in Parliament, May 30, 1777, ridicules the idea of conquest, at 
the same time warning against the attitude of France.) 

My Lords, — 

This is a flying moment ; perhaps but six weeks left to arrest 
the dangers that surround us. The gathering storm may break ; 
it has opened, and in part burst. It is difficult for government, 
after all that has passed, to shake hands with the defiers of the 
king, defiers of the Parliament, defiers of the people. I am a 
defier of nobody, but if an end is not put to this war, there is an 
end to this kingdom. I do not trust my judgment in my pres- 
ent state of health ; this is the judgment of my better days ; the 



128 PATRIOTIC READER. 

result of forty years' attention to America. They are rebels ! 
but what are they rebels for? Surely not for defending their 
unquestionable rights ! What have these rebels done hereto- 
fore? I remember when they raised four regiments on their 
own bottom, and took Louisbourg from the veteran troops of 
France. 

But their excesses have been great! I do not mean their 
panegyric ; but must observe, in extenuation, the erroneous and 
infatuated counsels which have prevailed. The door to mercy 
and justice has been shut against them. But they may still be 
taken up upon the grounds of their former submission. I state 
to you the importance of America. It is a double market ; a 
market of consumption and a market of supply. This double 
market for millions, with naval stores, you are giving to your 
hereditary rival. 

America has carried you through four wars, and will now 
carry you to your death if you do not take things in time. In 
the sportsman's phrase, when you have found yourselves at 
fault you must " try back." You have ransacked every corner 
of Lower Saxony ; but forty thousand German Boers never can 
conquer ten times the number of British freemen. They may 
ravage ; they cannot conquer. But you would conquer, you say. 
Why, what would you conquer ? The map of America ? I am 
ready to meet any general officer on the subject. 

What will you do out of the protection of your fleet? In 
the winter, if together, they are starved, and if dispersed, they 
are taken off in detail. I am experienced in spring hopes and 
vernal promises. I know what ministers throw out ; but at last 
will come your equinoctial disappointment. They tell you what? 
That your army " will be as strong as it was last year," when it 
was not strong enough. You have gained nothing in America 
but stations. You have been three years teaching them the art 
of war. They are apt scholars ; and I will venture to tell your 
lordships that the American gentry will make officers enough 
fit to command the troops of all the European powers. What 
you have sent there ai-e too many to make peace, too few to 
make war. 

If you conquer them, what then ? You cannot make them 
respect you; you cannot make them wear your cloth. You will 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 129 

plant an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. Coming 
from the stock they do, they can never respect you. If minis- 
ters are correct in saying there is no sort of treaty with France, 
there is still a moment left ; the point of honor is still safe. 
France must be as self-destroying as England to make a treaty 
while you are giving her America, at the expense of twelve mil- 
lions a year. The intercourse has produced everything to 
France ; and England, poor old England, must pay for all. 

I have at different times made different propositions, adapted 
to the circumstances in which they were offered. The plan con- 
tained in the former bill is now impracticable. The present 
motion will tell you where you are, and what you have now to 
depend upon. It may produce a respectable division in America 
and unanimity at home. It will give America an option. She 
has yet made no option. You have said, "Lay down your 
arms," and she has given you the Spartan answer, "Come and 
take them !" 

I will get out of my bed on Monday to move for an imme- 
diate redress of all their grievances, and for continuing to them 
the right of disposing of their own property. This will be the 
herald of peace ; this will open the way for treaty ; this will 
show that Parliament is sincerely disposed. Yet still much must 
be left to treaty. Should you conquer this people, you conquer 
under the cannon of France ; under a masked battery, then 
ready to open. The moment a treaty with France appears, you 
must declare war, though you had only five ships of the line in 
England ; but France will defer a treaty as long as possible. 

You are now at the mercy of every little German chancery ; 
and the pretensions of France will increase daily, so as to be- 
come an avowed party in either peace or war. We have tried 
for unconditional submission ; let us try what can be gained by 
unconditional redress. Less dignity will be lost in the repeal 
than in submitting to the demands of German chanceries. We 
are the aggressors. We have invaded them. We have invaded 
them as much as the Spanish Armada invaded England. Mercy 
cannot do harm ; it will seat the king where he ought to be, — 
throned on the hearts of his people ; and millions at home and 
abroad, now employed in obloquy or revolt, would then pray 
for him. William Pitt (Lord Chatham). 



130 PATRIOTIC READER. 

AMERICA STILL UNCONQUERABLE. 

1777. 

The birth of a princess and universal congratulations on the 
one hand, and the presence of American ambassadors at the 
French Court, unresented by the British ministry, evoked from 
the great orator one of his most impassioned tributes to the 
patriotic colonists, on the 18th of November, 1777. As if the 
government had not sufficiently debased the credit of Great 
Britain as a Christian state, Lord Suffolk proposed to employ 
Indians as allies in the prosecution of the war in America, upon 
the specious plea that they " had the right to use all the means 
that God and nature had placed in their hands to conquer 
America." As among the last utterances of the great friend 
of the rising American republic, both speeches are worthy of 
perpetual remembrance by its youth. Lord Chatham's protest 
against the use of barbarous allies has been repeatedly adopted 
by humane statesmen in other lands where similar measures 
have been proposed. 

(From Address, November 18, 1777.) 

I rise, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn 
and serious subject. ..." But yesterday, and England might 
have stood against the world ; now, none so poor as to do her 
reverence." 1 use the words of a poet ; but, though it is poetry, 
it is no fiction. It is a shameful truth that not only the power 
and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, 
but her well-earned glories, her true honors, and substantial 
dignity are sacrificed. 

The ministers and ambassadors of those who are called rebels 
and enemies are in Paris. In Paris they transact the reciprocal 
interests of America and France. Can there be a more mortify- 
ing insult ? Can even our ministers sustain a more humiliating 
disgrace ? Do they dare to resent it ? Do they even presume 
to hint a vindication of their honor and the dignity of the State 
by requiring the dismissal of the Plenipotentiaries of America ? 
Such is the degradation to which they have reduced the glories 
of England. 

The people whom they affect to call rebels, but whose grow- 
ing power has at last obtained the name of enemies ; the people 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 131 

with whom they have engaged this country in war, and against 
whom they now command our implicit support in every meas- 
ure of desperate hostility ; this people, despised as rebels, are 
acknowledged as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied 
with every military store, their interests consulted, and their 
ambassadors entertained by your inveterate enemy. And our 
ministers dare not interpose with dignity and effect. Is this the 
honor of a great kingdom? Is this the indignant spirit of 
England, who but yesterday gave law to the House of Bour- 
bon ? The dignity of nations demands a decisive conduct in a 
situation like this. 

The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. I 
love and I honor the English troops. No man thinks more 
highly of them than I do. I know they can achieve anything 
except impossibilities ; and I know that the conquest of English 
America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say, you 
cannot conquer America. 

Your armies in the last war effected everything that could be 
effected, and what was it ? It cost a numerous army, under the 
command of a most noted general, now a noble lord in this 
House, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand 
Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you cannot conquer 
America ! What is your present situation there ? We do not 
know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have 
done nothing and suffered much. We shall soon know, and in 
any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. 

As to conquest, my lords, I repeat, — it is impossible! You 
may swell every expense and every effort, still more extrava- 
gantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or 
borrow ; traffic and barter with every little, pitiful German 
prince who will sell his subjects to the shambles of a foreign 
power ! Your efforts are forever vain and impotent ; doubly so 
from this mercenary aid on which you rely. For it irritates, to 
an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies to overrun 
them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting 
ihem and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. 
If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign 
troop remained in nry country I never would lay down my arms ; 

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. WlLLIAM PlTT (LORD CHATHAM.) 



132 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE USE OP SAVAGE ALLIES DENOUNCED. 

(In Parliament, November 18, 1777.) 

My Lords, — 

I am astonished to hear such principles confessed! I am 
shocked ! to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country, 
— principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! 

My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again on your 
attention ; but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself 
impelled by every duty. My lords, we are called upon as 
members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest 
against such notions standing near the throne, polluting the ear 
of Majesty. " That God and nature put into our hands" ! I 
know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature; 
but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhor- 
rent to religion and humanity. 

What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature 
to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! to the cannibal 
savage, torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating — literally, my 
lords, eating — the mangled victims of his barbarous battles I 
Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or 
natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. And, my 
lords, they shock every sentiment of honor ; they shock me as a 
lover of honorable war and a detester of murderous barbarity. 

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal 
of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon 
that Eight Eeverend Bench, those holy ministers of the gospel, 
and pious pastors of our Church : I conjure them to join in the 
holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal 
to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and 
support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to 
interpose the unsullied sanctity of their laws ; upon the learned 
judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from 
this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to 
reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your 
own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to 
vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the 
constitution. 

Spain armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 133 

wretched natives of America ; and we improve on the inhuman 
example even of Spanish cruelty. We turn loose these savage 
hell-hounds against our brethren and countrymen in America, 
of the same language, laws, liberties, and religion ; endeared to 
us by every tie that should sanctify humanity. 

My lords, this awful subject, so important to our honor, our 
constitution, and our religion, demands the most solemn and 
effectual inquiry. And I again call upon your lordships and 
the united powers of the state to examine it thoroughly and 
decisively, and to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the 
public abhorrence. And I again implore those holy prelates of 
our religion to do away these iniquities from among us. Let 
them perform a lustration; let them purify this House and 
country from this sin. 

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say 
more ; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have 
said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor re- 
posed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my 
eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles. 
William Pitt (Lord Chatham). 



CONTINUED WAR WITH AMERICA IS FOLLY. 

(Address in Parliament, 1778.) 

You have now two wars before you, of which you must choose 
one, for both you cannot support. The war against America 
has hitherto been carried on against her alone, unassisted by any 
ally whatever. Notwithstanding she stood alone, you have been 
obliged, uniformly, to increase your exertions and to push your 
efforts to the extent of your power without being able to bring 
it to an issue. You have exerted all your force hitherto with- 
out effect, and you cannot now divide a force found already 
inadequate to its object. 

My opinion is for withdrawing your forces from America 
entirely, for a defensive war you can never think of there. A 
defensive war would ruin this nation at any time, and, in any 
circumstances, offensive war is pointed out as proper for this 



134 PATRIOTIC READER. 

country. Our situation points it out, and the spirit of the 
nation impels us to attack rather than defend. Attack France, 
then, for she is our object. The nature of these wars is differ- 
ent. The war against America is against our own countrymen ; 
you have stopped me from saying against your fellow-subjects. 
That against France is against an inveterate foe and rival. 
Every blow you strike in America is against yourselves. It is 
against all idea of reconciliation, and against your own interest, 
even though you should be able, as you never will be, to force 
them to submit. Every stroke against France is of advantage 
to you. America must be conquered in France. France never 
can be conquered in America. 

The war of the Americans is a war of passion. It is of such 
a nature as to be supported by the most powerful virtues, — love 
of liberty and love of country, — and at the same time by those 
passions in the human heart which give courage, strength, and 
perseverance to man, — the spirit of revenge for the injuries you 
have done them, of retaliation for the hardships you have in- 
flicted on them, and of opposition to the unjust powers you have 
exercised over them. Everything combines to animate them to 
this war ; and such a war is without end. Whether it be called 
obstinacy or enthusiasm, under the name of religion or liberty, 
the effects are the same. It inspires a spirit which is uncon- 
querable, solicitous to undergo difficulty, danger, and hardship. 
So long as there is a man in America, — a being formed as we 
are, — so long will he present himself against you in the field. 

What has become of the ancient spirit of this people ? Where 
is the national spirit that ever did honor to this country? 

Charles James Fox. 



AMERICANS WILL CELEBRATE 1775 AS A "GLO- 
RIOUS ERA." 
(From Speech in Parliament, 1780.) 
Mr. Speaker, — 

It ill becomes the duty and dignity of Parliament to lose 
itself in such a fulsome, adulatory address to the throne as that 
now proposed. We ought rather to approach it with sound 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 135 

and wholesome advice, and even with remonstrances against 
the ministers who have precipitated the British nation into an 
unjust, ruinous, murderous, and felonious war. I call the war 
with our brethren in America an unjust and felonious war, be- 
cause the primary cause and confessed origin of it is to attempt 
to take their money from them without their consent, contrary 
to the common rights of all mankind and to those great funda- 
mental principles of the English constitution for which Hamp- 
den bled. I assert that it is a murderous war, because it is an 
effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in the defence 
of their property and their clear rights. Such a war, I fear, will 
draw down the vengeance of heaven upon this kingdom. 

Sir, is any minister weak enough to flatter himself with the 
conquest of America ? You cannot, with all your allies, with 
all the mercenary ruffians of the North, you cannot effect so 
wicked a purpose ! The Americans will dispute every inch of 
territory with you, every narrow pass, every strong defile, every 
Thermopylae, every Bunker Hill ! More than half the empire is 
already lost, and almost all the rest is in confusion and anarchy. 
We have appealed to the sword, and what have we gained? 
Are we to pay as dear for the rest of America ? The idea of the 
conquest of that immense country is as romantic as it is unjust. 

But " the Americans have been treated with lenity" ! Will 
facts justify the assertion ? Was your Boston " Port Bill" a 
measure of lenity ? Was your Fishery Bill a measure of lenity ? 
Was your bill for taking away the charter of Massachusetts a 
measure of lenity ? I omit your many other gross provocations 
and insults by which the brave Americans have been driven to 
their present state. Whether that state is one of rebellion or of 
fit resistance to unlawful acts of power I shall not declare. This 
I know : a successful resistance is revolution, not a rebellion. 
Rebellion, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but 
revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious warrior. 

Who can tell whether, in consequence of this day's action, the 
scabbard may not be thrown away by them as well as by us, 
and, should success attend them, whether in a few years the in- 
dependent American may not celebrate the glorious era of the 
Revolution of 1775 as we do that of 1688 ? 

John Wilkes. 



136 PATRIOTIC READER. 

AMERICA SEATED AMONG THE NATIONS. 

(From Oration at Boston, March 5, 1780.) 

The rising sun of this Western Hemisphere is already an- 
nounced, and she is summoned to her seat among the nations of 
the earth. We have publicly declared ourselves convinced of the 
destructive tendencies of standing armies. We have acknowl- 
edged the necessity of public spirit and the love of virtue to 
the happiness of any people, and we profess to be sensible of 
the great blessings that flow from them. Let us not act unwor- 
thily of the reputable character we now sustain. Let integrity 
of heart, the spirit of freedom, and rigid virtue be seen to 
actuate every member of the commonwealth. 

The trial of our patriotism is yet before us, and we have reason 
to thank heaven that its principles are so well known and dif- 
fused. Exercise towards each other the benevolent feelings of 
friendship, and let that unity of sentiment which has shone in 
the field be equally animating in our councils. Remember that 
prosperity is dangerous ; that, though successful, we are not in- 
fallible. 

Let this sacred maxim make the deepest impression upon our 
minds, that if avarice, if extortion, if luxury and political cor- 
ruption are suffered to become popular among us, civil discord 
and the ruin of our country will be the speedy consequence of 
such fatal vices. But while patriotism is the leading principle, 
and our laws are contrived with wisdom and executed with 
vigor; while industry, frugality, and temperance are held in 
estimation, and we depend upon public spirit and the love of 
virtue for our social happiness, peace and affluence will throw 
their smiles upon the brow of individuals, our commonwealth 
will flourish, our land will become a land of liberty, and America 

an asylum for the oppressed. 

Jonathan Mason. 



A NATION BORN IN A DAY. 

The Declaration of Independence! The interest which in 
that paper has survived the occasion upon which it was issued, 
the interest which is of every age and every clime, the interest 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPED. 137 

which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, 
and brightens as it recedes, is in the principles which it pro- 
claims. It was the first solemn declaration, by a nation, of the 
only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the cor- 
ner-stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the 
globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all govern- 
ments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of 
accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced in practical 
form to the world the transcendent truth of the inalienable sov- 
ereignty of the people. It proved that the social compact was no 
figment of the imagination, but a real, solid, and sacred bond of 
the social union. From the day of this declaration the people of 
North America were no longer the fragment of a distant empire, 
imploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master in 
another hemisphere. They were no longer children, appealing 
in vain to the sympathies of a heartless mother ; no longer sub- 
jects, leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises, and 
invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights. They 
were a nation, asserting as of right, and maintaining by war, its 
own existence. A nation was born in a day. 

" How many ages hence 
Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o'er 
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?" 

It will be acted o'er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be re- 
peated. It stands, and must forever stand, alone ; a beacon on 
the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the 
earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light, till time 
shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave 
a wreck behind. It stands forever, a light of admonition to the 
rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the op- 
pressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human 
beings, so long as man shall be of a social nature, so long as 
government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of 
society, so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppres- 
sion, so long shall this declaration hold out to the sovereign and 
to the subject the extent and the boundaries of their respective 
rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature and of nature's 
God. 

John Quincy Adams. 



138 PATRIOTIC READER. 



ODE FOR INDEPENDENCE. 

When Freedom, 'midst the battle-storm, 

Her weary head reclined, 
And round her fair, majestic form 

Oppression fain had twined, 
Amid the din, beneath the cloud, 

Great Washington appeared, 
With daring hand rolled back the shroud, 

And thus the sufferer cheered : 

" Spurn, spurn despair I be great, be free ! 

With giant strength arise ; 
Stretch, stretch thy pinions, Liberty, 

Thy flag plant in the skies ! 
Clothe, clothe thyself in Glory's robe, 

Let stars thy banner gem ; 
Rule, rule the sea, — possess the globe, — 

Wear Victory's diadem ! 

" Go and proclaim a world is born, 

Another orb gives light ; 
Another sun illumes the morn, 

Another star the night ; 
Be just, be brave ! and let thy name, 

Henceforth, Columbia be ; 
And wear the oaken wreath of fame, 

The wreath of Liberty." 

He said, and lo ! the stars of night 

Forth to her banner flew ; 
And morn, with pencil dipped in light, 

Her blushes on it drew ; 
Columbia's eagle seized the prize, 

And, gloriously unfurled, 
Soared with it to his native skies, 

And waved it o'er the world. 

Anonymous (Raymond 's Patriotic Reader). 



PART V. 

MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Modern history, oratory, and poetry are so replete with 
tributes to the memory of Washington, that the entire progress 
of the civilized world for more than a century has been shaped 
by the influence of his life and precepts. The memorial shaft 
at the national capital, which is the loftiest of human structures, 
and is inner-faced by typical expressions of honor from nearly all 
nations, is a fit type of his surmounting merit. The ceremonies 
which attended the corner-stone consecration and signalized its 
completion are no less an honor to the distinguished historian 
and statesman who voiced the acclamations of the American 
people than a perpetual testimonial worthy of the subject 
honored by the occasion and by the monument. When the 
world pays willing tribute, and the most ambitious monarch on 
earth would covet no higher plaudit than that he served his 
people as faithfully as Washington served America, it is difficult 
to fathom the depths of memorial sentiment and place in public 
view those which are the most worthy of study and apprecia- 
tive respect. The national life itself throbs through his trans- 
mitted life, and the aroma of his grace is as consciously breathed 
by statesmen and citizens to-day as the invisible atmosphere 
which secures physical vitalitjr and force. Senator Yance, of 
North Carolina, thus earnestly commends to the youth of 
America the brightness and beauty of the great example : 

" Greater soldiers, more intellectual statesmen, and profounder sages have 
doubtless existed in the history of the English race, perhaps in our own 
country, but not one who to great excellence in the threefold composition 
of man, the physical, intellectual, and moral, has added such exalted integrity, 

139 



140 PATRIOTIC READER. 

such unaffected piety, such unsullied purity of soul, and such wondrous con- 
trol of his own spirit. He illustrated and adorned the civilization of Chris- 
tianity, and furnished an example of the wisdom and perfection of its teach- 
ings which the subtlest arguments of its enemies cannot imp 'aeh. That one 
grand, rounded life, full-orbed with intellectual and moral glory, is worth, as 
the product of Christianity, more than all the dogmas of all the teachers. The 
youth of America who aspire to promote their own and their country's wel- 
fare should never cease to gaze upon his great example, or to remember that 
the brightest gems in the crown of his immortality, the qualities which up- 
hold his fame on earth and plead for him in heaven, were those which charac- 
terized him as the patient, brave, Christian gentleman. In this respect he 
was a blessing to the whole human race no less than to his own countrymen, 
to the many millions who annually celebrate the day of his birth." 

Such sentiments fitly illustrate the controlling element of 
character which made the conduct of Washington so peerless in 
the field and in the chair of state. His first utterances upon 
assuming command of the American army before Boston, on 
the 2d of July, 1775, were a rebuke of religious bigotry and an 
impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral 
practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for 
national independence. Succeeding orders, preparatory to the 
battle of Long Island, in August, 1776, breathe the same spirit, — 
that which transfused all his activities, as with celestial fire, 
until he surrendered his commission with a devout and public 
recognition of Almighty God as the author of his success. 



WASHINGTON. 

The Brightest Name on History's Page. 

Land of the West ! though passing brief the record of thine age, 
Thou hast a name that darkens all on history's wide page ! 
Let all the blasts of Fame ring out,— thine shall be loudest far ; 
Let others boast their satellites, — thou hast the planet star. 
Thou hast a name whose characters of light shall ne'er depart; 
'Tis stamped upon the dullest brain, and warms the coldest heart ; 
A war-cry fit for any land where freedom's to be won ; 
Land of the West! it stands alone, — it is thy Washington! 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 141 

Eome had its Caesar, great and brave, but stain was on his 

wreath ; 
He lived the heartless conqueror, and died the tyrant's death. 
France had its eagle, but his wings, though lofty they might 

soar, 
Were spread in false ambition's flight, and dipped in murder's 

gore. 
Those hero-gods, whose mighty sway would fain have chained 

the waves — 
Who flashed their blades with tiger zeal to make a world of 

slaves — 
Who, though their kindred barred the path, still fiercely waded 

on, 
Oh, where shall be their " glory" by the side of Washington ! 

He fought, but not with love of strife ; he struck but to defend ; 
And ere he turned a people's foe, he sought to be a friend ; 
He strove to keep his country's right by reason's gentle word, 
And sighed when fell injustice threw the challenge sword to 

sword. 
He stood the firm, the wise, the patriot, and the sage ; 
He showed no deep, avenging hate, no burst of despot rage; 
He stood for Liberty and Truth, and daringly led on 
Till shouts of victory gave forth the name of Washington. 

No car of triumph bore him through a city filled with grief; 
No groaning captives at the wheels proclaimed him victor-chief; 
He broke the gyves of slavery with strong and high disdain, 
But cast no sceptre from the links when he had rent the chain. 
He saved his land, but did not lay his soldier trappings down 
To change them for a regal vest and don a kingly crown. 
Fame was too earnest in her joy, too proud of such a son, 
To let a robe and title mask her noble Washington. 

England, my heart is truly thine, my loved, my native earth, — 
The land that holds a mother's grave and gave that mother birth ! 
Oh, keenly sad would be the fate that thrust me from thy shore, 
And faltering my breath that sighed, " Farewell for evermore !" 



142 PATRIOTIC READER. 

But did I meet such adverse lot, I would not seek to dwell 
"Where olden heroes wrought the deeds for Homer's song to tell. 
" Away, thou gallant ship !" I'd cry, "and bear me safely on, 
But bear me from my own fair land to that of Washington." 

Eliza Cook. 



WASHINGTON BEFORE THE BATTLE OP LONG 
ISLAND, AUGUST, 1776. 

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine 
whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves ; whether tbey 
are to have any property they can call their own ; whether their 
houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and them- 
selves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no 
human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions 
will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of 
this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only 
the choice of a brave resistance or the most abject submission. 
"We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or to die. 

Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous 
and manly exertion ; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall 
become infamous to the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the 
goodness of our cause and the aid of the Supreme Being, in 
whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great 
and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are now 
upon us ; and we shall have their blessings and praises if. happily, 
we are the instruments of saving them from the tyranny medi- 
tated against them. Let us, therefore, animate and encourage 
each other, and show the whole world that a freeman contend- 
ing for liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mer- 
cenary on earth. 

Liberty, property, life, and honor are all at stake. Upon your 
courage and conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted 
country. Our wives, children, and parents expect safety from 
us only ; and they have every reason to believe that heaven will 
crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will endeavor 
to intimidate by show and appearance ; but remember they have 
been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 143 

Their cause is bad, — their men are conscious of it ; and, if op- 
posed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our 
advantage of works and knowledge of the ground, the victory 
is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and 
attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire until he is sure of 
doing execution. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL TO THE ARMY. 
(Dated at Kocky Hill, near Princeton, New Jersey, November 2, 1783.) 

It is universally acknowledged that the enlarged prospects of 
happiness, opened by the confirmation of our independence and 
sovereignty, almost exceed the power of description. And shall 
not the brave men who have contributed so essentially to these 
inestimable acquisitions, retiring from the field of war to the 
field of agriculture, participate in all the blessings which have 
been obtained ? In such a republic, who will exclude them from 
the rights of citizens and the fruits of their labors ? 

To those hardy soldiers who are actuated by the spirit of 
adventure, the fisheries will afford ample and profitable employ- 
ment, and the extensive and fertile regions of the West will 
yield a most happy asylum to those who, fond of domestic 
employment, are seeking personal independence. 

Little is now wanting to enable the soldier to change the mil- 
itary character into that of a citizen but that steady and decent 
behavior which has distinguished not only the army under his 
immediate command, but the different detachments and separate 
armies through the course of the war. To the various branches 
of the army the general takes this last and solemn opportunity 
of professing his inviolable attachment and friendship. He 
can only again offer in their behalf his recommendations to their 
grateful country and his prayers to the God of armies. May 
ample justice be done them here, and may favors, both here and 
hereafter, attend those who, under the divine auspices, have 
secured innumerable blessings for others 1 

With these wishes and this benediction the commander-in- 



144 PATRIOTIC READER. 

chief is about to retire from service. The curtain of separation 
will soon be drawn, and the military scene to him will be closed 
forever ! 



GENERAL WASHINGTON'S RESIGNATION AS COM- 
MANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
Mr. President, — 

The great events on which my resignation depended having 
at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my 
sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself 
before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed 
to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service 
of my country. 

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sover- 
eignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United 
States of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfac- 
tion the appointment I accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence in 
my abilities to accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, 
was superseded by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, 
the support of the supreme power of the Union, and the patron- 
age of heaven. 

The successful termination of the war has verified the most 
sanguine expectations, and my gratitude for the interposition of 
Providence and the assistance I have received from my coun- 
trymen increases with every review of the momentous contest. 

While I repeat my obligations to the army in general, I should 
do injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in this 
place, the peculiar services and distinguished merits of the gen- 
tlemen who have been attached to my person (hiring the war. 

It was impossible the choice of confidential officers to com- 
pose my family should have been more fortunate. Permit me, 
sir, to recommend in particular those who have continued in the 
service to the present moment, as worthy of the favorable notice 
and patronage of Congress. 

I consider it as my indispensable duty to close this last solemn 
act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest 
country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have 
the superintendence of them, to His holy keeping. 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 145 

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the 
great theatre of action ; and, bidding an affectionate farewell 
to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, 
I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the em- 
ployments of public life. 

G. Washington. 

December 23, 1783. 



FROM PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S FIRST SPEECH 
IN CONGRESS, APRIL 30, 1789. 

Fellow-Citizens op the Senate and of the House op Repre- 
sentatives, — 

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have 
filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notifica- 
tion was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th of 
the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my 
country — whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and 
love — from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predi- 
lection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, 
as the asylum of my declining years : — a retreat which was ren- 
dered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me by 
the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interrup- 
tions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by 
time. 

On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust, 
to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to 
awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a 
distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but over- 
whelm with despondence one who, inheriting inferior endow- 
ments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of civil ad- 
ministration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own de- 
ficiencies. 

In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it has been 

my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of 

every circumstance by which it might be affected. All I dare 

hope is, that if, in executing this task, I have been too much 

10 



146 PATRIOTIC READER. 

swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by 
an affectionate sensibility to tbis transcendent proof of tbe 
confidence of my fellow-citizens, and bave tbence too little con- 
sulted my incapacity, as well as disinclination, for tbe weighty 
and untried cares before me, my error will be palliated by the 
motives whicb misled me, and its consequences be judged by 
my country witb some share of the partiality in which they 
originated. 

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience 
to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would 
be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent 
supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the uni- 
verse, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose provi- 
dential aids can supply every human defect, that his benedic- 
tion may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people 
of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for 
these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument em- 
ployed in its administration, to execute with success the func- 
tions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the 
great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself 
that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor 
those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. 

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisi- 
ble hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people 
of tbe United States. Every step by which they have advanced 
to the character of an independent nation seems to bave been 
distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the 
important revolution just accomplished in the system of their 
united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary 
consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event 
has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most 
governments have been established, without some return of pious 
gratitude, along with a humble anticipation of the future bless- 
ings which the past seems to presage. 

These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced 
themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will 
join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none, under 
the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free govern- 
ment can more auspiciously commence. 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 147 



PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S RESPONSE TO THE 
FRENCH AMBASSADOR ON RECEIPT OP THE 
COLORS OP PRANCE, 1796. 

Born, sir, in a land of liberty, having early learned its value, 
having engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it, having, in a 
word, devoted the best years of my life to secure it a permanent 
establishment in my own country, my anxious recollections, my 
sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes are irresistibly excited 
whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl 
the banners of freedom. But above all, the events of the French 
Kevolution have produced the deepest solicitude as well as the 
highest admiration. To call your nation brave were to pro- 
nounce but common praise. Wonderful people ! Ages to come 
will read with astonishment the history of your brilliant exploits. 

I rejoice that the period of your toils and of your immense 
sacrifices is approaching. I rejoice tbat the interesting revolu- 
tionary movements of so many years have issued in the forma- 
tion of a constitution designed to give permanency to the great 
object for which you have contended. I rejoice that liberty, 
which you have so long embraced with enthusiasm, liberty, of 
which you have been the invincible defenders, now finds an 
asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government ; a 
government which, being formed to secure the happiness of the 
French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, 
while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States 
by its resemblance of their own. On these glorious events 
accept, sir, my sincere congratulations. 

In delivering to you these sentiments, I express not my own 
feelings only, but those of my fellow-citizens, in relation to the 
commencement, the progress, and the issue of the French Revo- 
lution ; and they will cordially join with me in purest wishes to 
the Supreme Being that the citizens of our sister republic, our 
magnanimous allies, may soon enjoy, in peace, that liberty which 
they have purchased at so great a price, and all the happiness 
which liberty can bestow. 

I receive, sir, with lively sensibility, the symbol of the 
triumphs and of the enfranchisements of your nation, the 
colors of France, which you have now presented to the United 



148 PATRIOTIC READER. 

States. The transaction will be announced to Congress, and the 
colors will be deposited with those archives of the United States 
which are at once the evidences and the memorials of their 
freedom and independence. May these be perpetual ; and may 
the friendship of the two republics be commensurate with their 
existence ! 



FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 

September 17, 1796. 

Friends and Felloav-Citizens, — 

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the 
executive government of the United States being not far distant, 
and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be em- 
ployed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that 
important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may 
conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that 
I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to 
decline being considered among the number of those out of 
whom a choice is to be made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured 
that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard 
to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which 
binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that, in withdrawing 
the tender of service which silence in my situation might imply, 
I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, 
no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am 
supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with 
both. 

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to 
which your suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform 
sacrifice of inclination to tho opinion of duty, and to a deference 
for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that 
it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with 
motives, which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to 
that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The 
strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last elec- 



MEMOBIALS OF WASHINGTON. 149 

tion, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it 
to you ; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical 
posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous 
advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to 
abandon the idea. 

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as 
internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompati- 
ble with the sentiment of duty or propriety ; and am persuaded, 
whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that in the 
present circumstances of our country you will not disapprove 
my determination to retire. 

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous 
trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge 
of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, con- 
tributed towards the organization and administration of the 
government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment 
was capable. Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of 
my qualifications, experience, in my own eyes, perhaps still more 
in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence 
of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admon- 
ishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as 
necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any 
circumstances have given peculiar value to my services they 
were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that while 
choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriot- 
ism does not forbid it. . . . 

Let me warn you most solemnly against the baneful effects 
of the spirit of party. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable 
from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the 
human mind. It exists, under different shapes, in all govern- 
ments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed ; but in those 
of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is 
truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened 
by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which, in 
different ages and countries, has perpetrated the most horrid 
enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at 
length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The dis- 
orders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of 



150 PATRIOTIC READER. 

men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an 
individual ; and, sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing 
faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns 
this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins 
of public liberty. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 
prosperity, religion and morality ai-e indispensable supports. In 
vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should 
labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these 
firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere 
politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and 
cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections 
with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where 
is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense 
of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments 
of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without 
religion. 

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined educa- 
tion on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both 
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion 
of religious principles. 

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary 
spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with 
more or less force to every species of free government. Who 
that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon 
attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ? 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institu- 
tions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as 
the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it 
is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. 

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations ; cultivate 
peace and harmony with all : religion and morality enjoin this 
conduct ; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin 
it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant 
period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous 
and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted 
justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course 
of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 151 

any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady 
adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected 
the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The ex- 
periment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which 
ennobles human nature. 

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to ter- 
minate the career of my public life, my feelings do not permit 
me to suspend the deep acknowledgment of that debt of grati- 
tude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors 
it has conferred upon me ; still more for the steadfast confidence 
with which it has supported me ; and for the opportunities I 
have thence enjoyed, of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by 
services, faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal 
to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these 
services, let it always be remembered to your praise, as an in- 
structive example in our annals, that under circumstances in 
which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to 
mislead ; amidst appearances sometimes dubious ; vicissitudes 
of fortune often discouraging ; in situations in which, not un- 
frequently, want of success has countenanced the spirit of criti- 
cism ; the constancy of your support was the essential prop of 
the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were 
effected. 

Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me 
to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that 
heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its benefi- 
cence ; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual ; 
that the free constitution, which is the work of your hands, 
maybe sacredly maintained; that its administration in every 
department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue ; that, in 
fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the 
auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a pres- 
ervation and so prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to 
them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, 
and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it. 

Though in reviewing the incidents of my administration I am 
unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible 
of my defects not to think it probable that I may have com- 
mitted many errors. Whatever they may be, I ferver tly beseech 



152 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they tend. 
I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never 
cease to view them with indulgence ; and after forty-five years 
of my life dedicated to its service, with an upright zeal, that the 
faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as 
myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated 
by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who 
views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for 
several generations, I anticij>ate with pleasing expectation that 
retreat, in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the 
sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, 
the benign influence of good laws, under a free government ; the 
ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I 
trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 



THE CHARACTER OP WASHINGTON. 

To the historian few characters appear so little to have shared 
the common frailties and imperfections of human nature as that 
of "Washington. There are but few particulars that can be men- 
tioned even to his disadvantage. Instances may be found where, 
perhaps, it may be thought that he was decisive to a degree that 
partook of severity and harshness, or even more ; but how in- 
numerable were the decisions which he had to make ! — how 
difficult and how important, through the eventful series of 
twenty years of command in the cabinet or the field ! 

Let it be considered what it is to have the management of a 
revolution, and afterwards the maintenance of order. Where 
is the man who, in the history of our race, has ever succeeded 
in attempting successively the one and the other? — not on a 
small scale, a petty state in Italy, or among a horde of bar- 
barians, but in an enlightened age, when it is not easy for one 
man to rise superior to another, and in the eyes of mankind, — 

" A kingdom for a stage, 
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene." 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 153 

The plaudits of his country were continually sounding in his 
ears ; and neither the judgment nor the virtues of the man were 
ever disturbed. Armies were led to the field with all the enter- 
prise of a hero, and then dismissed with all the equanimity of a 
philosopher. Power was accepted, was exercised, was resigned, 
precisely at the moment and in the way that duty and patriotism 
directed. Whatever was the difficulty, the trial, the temptation, 
or the danger, there stood the soldier and the citizen, eternally 
the same, without fear and without reproach, and there was the 
man who was not only at all times virtuous, but at all times 
wise. 

The merit of Washington by no means ceases with his cam- 
paigns ; it becomes, after the peace of 1783, even more striking 
than before; for the same man who, for the sake of liberty, was 
ardent enough to resist the power of Great Britain, and hazard 
everything on this side the grave, at a later period had to be 
temperate enough to resist the same spirit of liberty, when it 
was mistaking its proper objects and transgressing its appointed 
limits. 

The American revolution was to approach him, and he was to 
kindle in the general flame : the French revolution was to reach 
him, and to consume but too many of his countrymen ; and his 
"own ethereal mould, incapable of stain, was to purge off the 
baser fire victorious." But all this was done : he might have 
been pardoned though he had failed amid the enthusiasm of those 
around him, and when liberty was the delusion ; but the foun- 
dations of the moral world were shaken, and not the understand- 
ing of Washington. 

As a ruler of mankind, he may be proposed as a model. 
Deeply impressed with the original rights of human nature, he 
never forgot that the end, and moaning, and aim of all just gov- 
ernment was the happiness of the people ; and he never exercised 
authority till he had first taken care to put himself clearly in 
the right. His candor, his patience, his love of justice, were 
unexampled ; and this, though naturally he was not patient, — • 
much otherwise,' — highly irritable. 

He therefore deliberated well, and placed his subject in every 
point of view, before he decided ; and, his understanding being 
correct, he was thus rendered, by the nature of his faculties, his 



154 PATRIOTIC READER. 

strength of mind, and his principles, the man, of all others, to 
whom the interests of his fellow-creatures might, with most 
confidence, be intrusted ; — that is, he was the first of the rulers 
of mankind. 

William Smyth. 



THE MEMORY OP WASHINGTON. 

To us, citizens of America, it belongs above all others to show 
respect to the memory of Washington, by the practical defer- 
ence which we pay to those sober maxims of public policy which 
he has left us, — a last testament of affection in his Farewell 
Address. Of all the exhortations which it contains, I scarce 
need to say to you that none are so emphatically uttered, none 
so anxiously repeated, as those which enjoin the preservation of 
the Union of these States. 

On this, under Providence, it depends in the judgment of 
Washington whether the people of America shall follow the 
Old World example, and be broken up into a group of inde- 
pendent military powers, wasted by eternal border wars, feeding 
the ambition of petty sovereigns on the life-blood of wasted 
principalities, — a custom-house on the bank of every river, a 
fortress on every frontier hill, a pirate lurking in the recesses 
of every bay, — or whether they shall continue to constitute a 
federal republic, the most extensive, the most powerful, the 
most prosperous in the long line of ages. No one can read the 
Farewell Address without feeling that this was the thought and 
this the care which lay nearest and heaviest upon that noble 
heart ; and if — which heaven forbid — the day shall ever arrive 
when his parting counsels on that head shall be forgotten, on 
that day, come it soon or come it late, it may as mournfully as 
truly be said that Washington has lived in vain. Then the 
vessels as they ascend and descend the Potomac may toll their 
bells with new significance as thoy pass Mount Yernon ; they 
will strike the requiem of constitutional liberty for us, — for all 
nations. 

But it cannot, shall not be; this great woe to our beloved 



MEMORIALS OP WASHINGTON. 155 

country, this catastrophe for the cause of national freedom, this 
grievous calamity for the whole civilized world, it cannot, shall 
not be. No, by the glorious 19th of April, 1775 ; no, by the 
precious blood of Bunker Hill, of Princeton, of Saratoga, of 
King's Mountain, of Yorktown ; no, by the undying spirit of 
'76 ; no, by the sacred dust enshrined at Mount Vernon ; no, by 
the dear immortal memory of Washington, — that sorrow and 
shame shall never be. 

A great and venerated character like that of Washington, 
which commands the respect of an entire population, however 
divided on other questions, is not an isolated fact in history to 
be regarded with barren admiration, — it is a dispensation of 
Providence for good. It was well said by Mr. Jefferson, in 1792, 
writing to Washington to dissuade him from declining a renomi- 
nation, "North and South will hang together while they have 
you to hang to." Washington in the flesh is taken from us ; 
we shall never behold him as our fathers did ; but his memory 
remains, and I say, let us hang to his memory. Let us make a 
national festival and holiday of his birthday ; and ever, as the 
22d of February returns, let us remember that, while with these 
solemn and joyous rites of observance we celebrate the great 
anniversary, our fellow-citizens on the Hudson, on the Potomac, 
from the Southern plains to the Western lakes, are engaged in 
the same offices of gratitude and love. 

Nor we, nor they alone ; — beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mis- 
sissippi, along that stupendous trail of immigration from East to 
West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is al- 
ready threading the Western prairies, swarming through the 
portals of the Eocky Mountains and winding down their slopes, 
the name and the memory of Washington on that gracious 
night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty 
degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks 
in her brightness through the Golden Gate of California, and 
passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian 
stars. There and there only, in barbarous archipelagoes, as yet 
untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is un- 
known, and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened 
millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to his memory. 

Edward Everett. 



156 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE GLORY OF WASHINGTON. 

How grateful the relief which the friend of mankind, the 
lover of virtue, experiences when, turning from the contempla- 
tion of such a character as Napoleon, his eye rests upon the 
greatest man of our own or any age, — the only one upon whom 
an epithet, so thoughtlessly lavished b}' men, to foster the crimes 
of their worst enemies, may be innocently and justly bestowed ! 
This eminent person is presented to our observation clothed in 
attributes as modest, as unpretending, as little calculated to 
strike or to astonish, as if he had passed unknown through 
some secluded region of private life. But he had a judgment 
sure and sound ; a steadiness of mind which never suffered any 
passion, or even any feeling, to ruffle its calm ; a strength of 
understanding which worked rather than forced its way through 
all obstacles, — removing, or avoiding, rather than overleaping 
them. If these things, joined to the most absolute self-denial, 
the most habitual and exclusive devotion to principle, can con- 
stitute a great character, without either quickness of apprehen- 
sion, remarkable resources of information, or inventive powers, 
or any brilliant quality that might dazzle the vulgar, — then 
surely Washington was the greatest man that ever lived in this 
world, uninspired by divine wisdom and unsustained by super- 
natural virtue. His courage, whether in battle or in council, 
was as perfect as might be expected from this pure and steady 
temper of soul. A perfectly just man, with a thoroughly firm 
resolution never to be misled by others, any more than to be 
by others overawed ; never to be seduced or betrayed, or hurried 
away by his own weaknesses or self-delusions, any more than 
by other men's arts; nor ever to be disheartened by the most 
complicated difficulties, any more than to be spoilt on the giddy 
heights of fortune ; — such was this great man. 

Great he was, pre-eminently great, whether we regard him 
sustaining, alone, the whole weight of campaigns all but desper- 
ate, or gloriously terminating a just warfare by his resources 
and his courage; presiding over the jarring elements of his 
political council, alike deaf to the storms of all extremes, or 
directing the formation of a new government for a great people, 
the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 157 

man ; or, finally, retiring from the supreme power to which his 
virtue had raised him over the nation he had created, and whose 
destinies he had guided as long as his aid was required, — re- 
tiring with the veneration of all parties, of all nations, of all man- 
kind, in order that the rights of men might be conserved, and 
that his example never might be appealed to by vulgar tyrants. 

This is the consummate glory of Washington : a triumphant 
warrior where the most sanguine had a right to despair; a suc- 
cessful ruler in all the difficulties of a course wholly untried ; 
but a warrior whose sword only left its sheath when the first 
law of our nature commanded it to be drawn ; and a ruler who, 
having tasted of supreme power, gently and unostentatiously 
desired that the cup might pass from him, nor would suffer more 
to wet his lips than the most solemn and sacred duty to his 
country and his God required ! To his latest breath did this 
great patriot maintain the noble character of a captain the 
patron of peace, and a statesman the friend of justice. Dying, 
he bequeathed to his heirs the sword which he had worn in the 
war for liberty, and charged them " never to take it from the 
scabbard but in self-defence, or in defence of their country and 
her freedom ;" and commanded them that, " when it should thus 
be drawn, they shonld never sheathe it, nor give it up, but prefer 
falling with it in their hands to the relinquishment thereof," — 
words, the majesty and simple eloquence of which are not sur- 
passed in the oratory of Athens and Eome. 

It will be the duty of the historian and the sage, in all ages, to 
let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man ; and, 
until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which 
our race has made in wisdom and in virtue be derived from the 
veneration paid to the immortal name of "Washington ! 

Henry (Lokd) Brougham. 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF WASHINGTON. 

No matter what may have been the immediate birthplace of 
such a man as Washington ! No clime can claim, no country 
can appropriate him: the boon of Providence to the human 
race, his fame is eternity, his residence creation. Though it was 



158 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the defeat of our arms and the disgrace of our policy, I almost 
bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens 
thundered and the earth rocked, yet when the storm passed how 
pure was the climate that it cleared ! How bright in the brow 
of the firmament was the planet it revealed to us ! In the pro- 
duction of Washington it does really appear as if nature was 
endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues 
of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to 
the patriot of the new. 

Individual instances, no doubt, there were; splendid exem- 
plifications of some single qualification, — Csesar was merciful, 
Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient, — but it was re- 
served for Washington to blend them all in one, and, like the 
lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow 
of associated beauty the pride of every model and the perfec- 
tion of every master. 

As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran and 
supplied by discipline the absence of experience. As a states- 
man, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most com- 
prehensive system of general advantage ; and such was the 
wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his counsels that 
to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character 
of the sage. 

A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a 
revolutionist, he was free from any stain of ti-eason ; for aggres- 
sion commenced the contest, and a country called him to the 
command; liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, vic- 
tory returned it. If he had paused here, history might doubt 
what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citi- 
zens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last 
glorious act crowned his career and banishes hesitation. Who, 
like Washington, after having freed a country, resigned her 
crown, and retired to a cottage rather than reign in a capitol ! 

Immortal man ! He took from the battle its crime, and from 
the conquest its chains ; he left the victorious the glory of his 
self-denial, and turned upon the vanquished only the retribu- 
tion of his mercy. Happy, proud America 1 The lightnings of 
heaven yielded to your philosophy ! The temptations of earth 
could not seduce your patriotism ! Charles Phillips. 



MEMORIALS OP WASHINGTON. 159 

THE FOREIGN POLICY OP WASHINGTON. 

How infinitely superior must appear the spirit and principles 
of General Washington, in his late address to Congress, compared 
with the policy of modern European courts! Illustrious man! 
— deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation than 
from the dignity of his mind ! Grateful to France for the assist- 
ance received from her in that great contest which secured the 
independence of America, he yet did not choose to give up the 
system of neutrality in her favor. Having once laid down the 
line of conduct most proper to be pursued, not all the insults 
and provocations of the French minister, Genet, could at all put 
him out of his way or bend him from his purpose. It must, 
indeed, create astonishment that, placed in circumstances so 
critical, and filling a station so conspicuous, the character of 
Washington should never once have been called in question ; that 
he should in no one instance have been accused either of im- 
proper insolence or of mean submission in his transactions with 
foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run the race of 
glory without experiencing the smallest interruption to the bril- 
liancy of his career. The breath of censure has not dared to 
impeach the purity of his conduct, nor the eye of envy to raise 
its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has 
been the transcendent merit and the unparalleled fate of this 
illustrious man ! 

How did he act when insulted by Genet? Did he consider it 
as necessary to avenge himself for the misconduct or madness of 
an individual by involving a whole continent in the horrors of 
war ? No ; he contented himself with procuring satisfaction for 
the insult by causing Genet to be recalled, and thus at once con- 
sulted his own dignity and the interests of his country. Happy 
Americans! while the whirlwind flies over one quarter of the 
globe, and spreads everywhere desolation, you remain protected 
from its baneful effects by your own virtues and the wisdom of 
your government. Separated from Europe by an immense ocean, 
you feel not the effect of those prejudices and passions which con- 
vert the boasted seats of civilization into scenes of horror and 
bloodshed. You profit by the folly and madness of the contend- 
ing nations, and afford, in your more congenial clime, an asylum 



160 PATRIOTIC READER. 

to those blessings and virtues which they wantonly contemn, or 
wickedly exclude from their bosom! Cultivating the arts of 
peace under the influence of freedom, you advance by rapid 
strides to opulence and distinction; and if by any accident you 
should be compelled to take part in the present unhappy contest, 
— if you should find it necessary to avenge insult or repel injury, 
— the world will bear witness to the equity of your sentiments 
and the moderation of your views ; and the success of your 
arms will, no doubt, be proportioned to the justice of your cause. 

Charles James Fox. 



THE BIRTHDAY OP WASHINGTON. 

The birthday of the " Father of his Country" ! May it ever 
be freshly remembered by American hearts ! May it ever re- 
awaken in them a filial veneration for his memory; ever re- 
kindle the fires of patriotic regard to the country which he 
loved so well; to which he gave his youthful vigor and his 
youthful energy during the perilous period of the early Indian 
warfare ; to which he devoted his life, in the maturity of his 
powers, in the field ; to which again he offered the counsels of 
his wisdom and his experience as president of the convention 
that framed our Constitution ; which he guided and directed while 
in the chair of state, and for which the last prayer of his earthly 
supplication was offered up when it came the moment for him 
so well, and so grandly, and so calmly, to die ! He was the first 
man of the time in which he grew. His memory is first and 
most sacred in our love ; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of 
blood shall freeze in the last American heart, his name shall be 
a spell of power and might. 

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one vast felicity which 
no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and tower- 
ing and matchless glory of his life which enabled him to create 
his country, and, at the same time, secure an undying love and 
regard from the whole American people. "The first in the 
hearts of his countrymen" 1 Yes, first! He has our first and 
most fervent love. Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 161 

good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American 
nation, as a nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. 
And the first love of that young America was Washington. The 
first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke 
it. It still is her proud ejaculation ; and it will be the last gasp 
of her expiring life ! 

Yes ! Others of our great men have been appreciated, — many 
admired by all. But him we love. Him we all love. About and 
around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dis- 
satisfied elements, no sectional prejudice nor bias, no party, no 
creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. 
Yes ! When the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, 
the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm 
and cheer every American heart. It shall re-lume that Prome- 
thean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love 
of country, which his words have commended, which his ex- 
ample has consecrated. 

" "Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows 

Nor despicable state ? 
Yes, — one, the first, the last, the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington 
To make man blush, there was but one." — Byron. 

Kuftjs Choate. 



THE BIRTHDAY OP WASHINGTON EVER HONORED. 

Welcome, thou festal morn ! 
Never be passed in scorn 

Thy rising sun, 
Thou day forever bright 
With Freedom's holy light, 
That gave the world the sight 

Of Washington. 
11 



162 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Unshaken 'mid the storm, 
Behold that noble form, — 

That peerless one, — 
With his protecting hand, 
Like Freedom's angel, stand, 
The guardian of our land, 

Our Washington. 

Traced there in lines of light, 
Where all pure rays unite, 

Obscured by none ; 
Brightest on history's page, 
Of any clime or age, 
As chieftain, man, and sage, 

Stands Washington. 

Name at which tyrants pale, 
And their proud legions quail, 

Their boasting done, 
While Freedom lifts her head, 
No longer filled with dread, 
Her sons to victory led 

By Washington. 

Now the true patriot see, 
The foremost of the free, 

The victory won, 
In Freedom's presence bow, 
While sweetly smiling now 
She wreathes the spotless brow 

Of Washington. 

Then, with each coming year, 
Whenever shall appear 

That natal sun, 
Will we attest the worth 
Of one true man to earth, 
And celebrate the birth 

Of Washington. 

George Howland. 



MEMORIALS OP WASHINGTON. 163 

THE WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN MEMORIALS 
LINKED. 

The sword of Washington ! The staff of Franklin ! Oh, sir, 
what associations are linked in adamant with these names! 
Washington, whose sword, as my friend has said, was never 
drawn but in the cause of his country, and never sheathed when 
wielded in his country's cause! Franklin, the philosopher of 
the thunderbolt, the printing-press, and the ploughshare ! What 
names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of 
human kind ! 

Washington and Franklin ! What other two men, whose lives 
belong to the eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a 
deeper impression of themselves upon the age in which they 
lived and upon all after-time ? 

Washington, the warrior and the legislator ! In war, contend- 
ing, by the wager of battle, for the independence of his country 
and for the freedom of the human race ; ever manifesting, amidst 
its horrors, by precept and example, his reverence for the laws 
of peace and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity; in 
peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord among his country- 
men into harmony and union ; and giving to that very sword, 
now presented to his country, a charm more potent than that 
attributed, in ancient times, to the lyre of Orpheus. 

Franklin ! The mechanic of his own fortune ; teaching, in 
early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, 
and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the 
maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the 
lightning of its fatal blast, and wresting from the tyrant's hand 
the still more effective sceptre of oppression ; while descending 
into the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, 
in the dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his 
hand the Charter of Independence, which he had contributed to 
form, and tendering, from the self-created nation, to the mightiest 
monarchs of Europe, the olive-branch of peace, the mercurial 
wand of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the 
man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable cruelty 
and merciless rapacity of war. 

And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters 



164 PATRIOTIC READER. 

upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, return- 
ing to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate 
of his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels, 
under the presidency of Washington, and recording his name, 
under the sanction of devout prayer, invoked by him to God, to 
that Constitution under the authority of which we are here 
assembled, as the representatives of the North American people, 
to receive, in their name and for them, these venerable relics of 
the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great con- 
federated republic, — these sacred symbols of our golden age ! 
May they be deposited among the archives of our government ! 
and every American, who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate 
a mingled offering of praise to that Supreme Euler of the uni- 
verse, by whose tender mercies our Union has been hitherto 
preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of this 
turbulent world, and of prayer for the continuance of these bless- 
ings, by the dispensations of Providence, to our beloved country, 
from age to age, till time shall be no more I 

John Qdincy Adams. 



CENTENNIAL BIRTHDAY OP WASHINGTON. 

A century from the birth of Washington has changed the 
world. The country of Washington has been the theatre on 
which a great part of that change has been wrought ; and Wash- 
ington himself a principal agent by which it has been accom- 
plished. It was his extraordinary fortune, that having been 
intrusted, in revolutionary times, with the supreme military 
command, and having fulfilled that trust with equal renown for 
wisdom and valor, he should be placed at the head of the first 
government in which an attempt was to be made on a largo 
scale to rear the fabric of social order on the basis of a written 
constitution and of a pure representative principle. 

The principles of his administration are not left doubtful. 
They are to be found in the Constitution itself, in the great 
measures recommended and approved by him, in his speeches 
to Congress, and in that most interesting paper, his Farewell 
Address to the People of the United States. To commanding 



MEMORIALS OP WASHINGTON. 165 

talents, and to success, he added a disregard of self, a spotless- 
ness of motive, a steady submission to every public and private 
duty, which threw in the shade all the whole crowed of the 
vulgar great. The object of his regard was the whole country. 
No part of it was large enough to fill his enlarged patriotism. 
He had no favorites ; he rejected all partisanship ; and acting 
honestly for the universal good, he received what he had so 
richly deserved, the universal love. 

The maxims upon which Washington conducted our foreign 
relations were few and simple. The first was an entire and in- 
disputable impartiality, and in the next place he maintained true 
dignity and unsullied honor in all communications with foreign 
states ; nor was there a prince or potentate of his day, whose 
personal character carried with it, into the intercourse of other 
states, a greater degree of respect and veneration. His single- 
ness of purpose, his disinterested patriotism, were evinced by the 
manner in which he filled places of high trust. He sought for 
men fit for office ; not for offices which might suit men. The 
whole country was the field of his selection. He was, indeed, 
most successful, and he deserved success, for the purity of his 
motives, the liberality of his sentiments, and his enlarged and 
manly policy. 

There was in the breast of Washington one sentiment so 
deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion 
escaped without its utterance. He regarded the union of these 
States less as one of blessing, than as the great treasure-house 
which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the 
great magazine of all our means of prosperity, and here are 
deposited all our solid hopes for future greatness. 

A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will 
celebrate his birth. When they shall meet to do themselves and 
him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue summits of 
his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they shall 
behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks 
he rests, still flowing on towards the sea, so surely may they see, 
as we now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the 
Capitol ; and then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no 
land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own 
country I Daniel Webster. 



166 PATRIOTIC READER. 



MEMORABILIA OP WASHINGTON. 

Born February 22 (February 11, O.S.), 1732. 

Surveyor of lands at sixteen years of age, 1748. 

Military inspector and major at nineteen years of age, 1751. 

Adjutant-general of Virginia, 1752. 

Commissioner to the French, 1753. 

Colonel, and commanding the Virginia militia, 1754. 

Aide-de-camp to Braddock in his campaign, 1755. 

Again commands the Virginia troops, 1755. 

Resigns his commission, 1758. 

Married, January 6, 1759. 

Elected member of Virginia House of Burgesses, 1759. 

Commissioner to settle military accounts, 1765. 

In First Continental Congress, 1774. 

In Second Continental Congress, 1775. 

Elected commander-in-chief, June 15, 1775. 

In command at Cambridge, July 2, 1775. 

Expels the British from Boston, March 17, 1776. 

Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776. 

Masterly retreat to New York, August 29, 1776. 

Gallant, at Kipp's Bay, September 15, 1776. 

Battle of Harlem Heights, October 27, 1776. 

Battle near White Plains, October 29, 1776. 

Enters New Jersey, November 15, 1776. 

Occupies right bank of the Delaware, December 5, 1776. 

Clothed with " full power," December 12, 1776. 

Plans an offensive campaign, December 14, 1776. 

Battle at Trenton, December 26, 1776. 

Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777. 

British driven from New Jersey during July, 1777. 

Marches for Philadelphia, July 13, 1777. 

Battle of Brandy wine, September 11, 1777. 

Offers battle at West Chester, September 15, 1777. 

Battle of Germantown, October 4, 1777. 

Winters at Valley Forge, 1778. 

Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778. 

British again retire from New Jersey, 1778. 



MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON. 167 

Again at White Plains, 1778 * 

At Middlebrook, New Jersey, and New Windsor, 1779. 

Winters at Morristown, New Jersey, 1780. 

Confers with Eochambeau as to plans, 1781. 

Threatens New York in June and July, 1781. 

Joins Lafayette before Yorktown, 1781. 

Surrender of Cornwallis, October 19, 1781. 

Farewell to the army, November 2, 1783. 

Occupies New York, November 25, 1783. 

Parts with his officers, December 4, 1783. 

Eesigns his commission, December 23, 1783. 

Presides at Constitutional Convention, 1787. 

Elected President of the United States, March 4, 1789. 

Inaugurated at New York, April 30, 1789. 

Ee-elected for four years, March 4, 1793. 

Farewell to the people, September 17, 1796. 

Eetires to private life, March 4, 1797. 

Appointed commander-in-chief, July 3, 1798. 

Died at Mount Yernon, December 14, 1799. 

* On the return of Washington to White Plains, after an absence of two 
years, he took occasion to contrast the two periods thus, writing, " The hand 
of Providence has been so conspicuous that he must be worse than an infidel 
that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to 
acknowledge his obligation." 



168 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE MOUNT VERNON TRIBUTE. 

THE DEFENDER OP HIS COUNTRY, THE FOUNDER OF LIBERTY, 

THE FRIEND OF MAN. 

HISTORY AND TRADITION ARE EXPLORED IN VAIN 

FOR A PARALLEL TO HIS CHARACTER. 

IN THE ANNALS OF MODERN GREATNESS, 

HE STANDS ALONE, 

AND THE NOBLEST NAMES OF ANTIQUITY 

LOSE THEIR LUSTRE IN HIS PRESENCE. 

BORN THE BENEFACTOR OF MANKIND, 

HE UNITED ALL THE QUALITIES NECESSARY 

TO AN ILLUSTRIOUS CAREER. 

NATURE MADE HIM GREAT; 

HE MADE HIMSELF VIRTUOUS. 

CALLED BY HIS COUNTRY TO THE DEFENCE OF HER LIBERTIES, 

HE TRIUMPHANTLY VINDICATED THE RIGHTS OF HUMANITY, 

AND ON THE PILLARS OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE 

LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF A GREAT REPUBLIC. 

TWICE INVESTED WITH THE SUPREME MAGISTRACY, 

BY THE UNANIMOUS VOICE OF A FREE PEOPLE, 

HE SURPASSED IN THE CABINET 

THE GLORIES OF THE FIELD. 

AND VOLUNTARILY RESIGNING THE SCEPTRE AND THE SWORD, 

RETIRED TO THE SHADES OF PRIVATE LIFE. 

A SPECTACLE SO NEW AND SO SUBLIME 

WAS CONTEMPLATED WITH THE PROFOUNDEST ADMIRATION; 

AND THE NAME OF 

WASHINGTON, 

ADDING NEW LUSTRE TO HUMANITY, 

RESOUNDED TO THE REMOTEST REGIONS OF THE EARTH. 

MAGNANIMOUS IN YOUTH, 

GLORIOUS THROUGH LIFE, 

GREAT IN DEATH. 

HIS HIGHEST AMBITION THE HAPPINESS OF MANKIND, 

HIS NOBLEST VICTORY THE CONQUEST OF HIMSELF, 

BEQUEATHING TO POSTERITY THE INHERITANCE OF HIS FAME, 
AND BUILDING HIS MONUMENT IN THE HEARTS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN, 
HE LIVED THE ORNAMENT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
AND DIED REGRETTED BY A MOURNING WORLD. 
The author of this inscription is not known. It has been transcribed from 
a manuscript copy written on the back of a picture-frame, in which is set a 
miniature likeness of Washington, and which hangs in one of the rooms of 
the mansion at Mount Vernon, where it was left some time after Washing- 
ton's death. 



PART VI. 

MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 



INTRODUCTION. 

On the 1st of January, 1801, an appropriation was made of 
two hundred thousand dollars for the erection of a "Washington 
Monument. An equestrian statue to his memory had been 
ordered on the 9th of August, 1783, and Major L'Bnfant, a 
gallant French officer who had served under Washington, se- 
lected for a site the very place now occupied by the completed 
obelisk. Both projects were neglected until James Buchanan, 
then " a young man, something of a sophomore, with all the 
ardor of youth," as he described himself, appealed to Congress 
to redeem its pledge. In 1833, Chief-Justice John Marshall 
became president of "The Washington Monument Society," and 
President John Madison succeeded him. On the 3d of January, 
1818, Congress secured the present grounds, of more than thirty 
acres; Mr. Eobert Mills completed an accepted design; Mr. 
Thomas Syraonton, of Baltimore, donated a massive corner-stone 
block, of more than twelve tons' weight, and on the 4th of July, 
following, the corner-stone was placed in position, with imposing 
ceremonies suited to the occasion. It was not until 1876 that 
Congress deliberately entered upon the completion of the monu- 
ment, under the immediate direction of Colonel Thomas Lincoln 
Casey, of the United States Engineer Corps. Previously, the 
Bunker Hill and Groton Monuments had been the highest of 
American memorial structures. 

The Perry Monument was dedicated at Cleveland, Ohio, on 
the 10th of September, 1860 ; the State authorities of Ehode 
Island, the Providence Light Infantry and Marine Artillery 
(both historical organizations) acting as escort to survivors of 

169 



170 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the Perry family from New York, Ehode Island, and Massachu- 
setts, who, with the surviving sailors of Perry's fleet, attended 
the dedication ceremonies. Governor William Dennison and 
staff, of Ohio, Ex-Governor Salmon Portland Chase, the militia 
of the State, civic societies in great numbers, and public men 
from many States, participated. A sham battle on the lake, 
within near view from the bluff's, between vessels as nearly 
as possible similar to those that took part in the battle of 
Lake Erie, made the occasion memorable. 

The corner-stone of the Saratoga Monument was laid October 

17, 1877 ; the Ancient Company of Governor's Foot Guards, 
of Hartford, Connecticut, and the Park Guards, of Bennington, 
Vermont, uniting with the New York National Guard, Knights 
Templar, and other civic orders in the ceremonies at Schuyler- 
ville. Governor Robinson was absent on account of illness. 
William L. Stone, Secretary of the Monument Association, de- 
livered an historical address. Generals James Grant Wilson 
and J. Watts De Peyster, with others, as well as the orators 
of the day, took part. 

The corner-stone of the Monmouth Monument was laid June 
28, 1878, at Freehold, New Jersey, Governor George B. Mc- 
Clellan and staff, Ex-Governors Parker, Bedell, and Newell, 
the entire militia of the State, the Masonic Order, officially, 
and all the leading civic societies of New Jersey, being in at- 
tendance. 

The corner-stone ceremonies at Yorktown, Virginia, October 

18, 1881, were officially endorsed by the United States, after an 
appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars for the monu- 
ment and twenty thousand dollars for the contingent expenses 
of entertaining the guests of the nation. The President of the 
French republic; its army and navy; the families of Lafayette, 
Rochambeau, and of others who served with Washington ; each 
of the States and Territories; the American army and navy; 
and the militia and benevolent societies of many Stales, were 
represented in the great military and civil pageant of the day. 
The initiative of the celebration was taken by Governor Frank W. 
M. Hollida}', of Virginia, who called a meeting of the governors 
of the " Original Thirteen States," for October 18, 1879, at Car- 
penters' Hall, Philadelphia, where arrangements were consum- 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 171 

mated for the event ; John Goode, of Virginia, President of the 
Yorktown Monument Association, lending his aid in the full 
development of the design. All the States invited were repre- 
sented ; and the Legislatures of other States made appropria- 
tions to secure proper representation. Vermont, the first State 
admitted to the Union under the Constitution, was also the first, 
by her Legislature, to provide for the presence of her governor 
and a fitting escort. 

The corner-stone of the Bennington Monument was laid August 
17, 1887, at Bennington, Vermont; Governor Ebenezer J. Orms- 
bee and staff, Governor Charles H. Sawyer and Ex-Governor 
B. F. Prescott, of New Hampshire, Governor Oliver Ames, of 
Massachusetts, and large numbers from adjoining States, impart- 
ing spirit to the occasion, which called together delegations from 
every town in the Commonwealth, in addition to its militia and 
civic societies. 

The Fort Moultrie Centennial, June 28, 1876, was the occasion 
of a very earnest appeal to all the States to share the hospitality 
of Charleston and renew a common devotion to the republic. 

The Jasper Monument was dedicated at Savannah, Georgia, 
February 22, 1888, Governor John Brown Gordon and staff, 
Colonel J. H. Estill, Chairman of the Monument Association, 
Mayor Lester, and numerous military, civic, and benevolent 
associations, participating, as well as Federal and State authori- 
ties generally. The concurrent visit of the President of the 
United States, and a memorable Industrial Exposition, added 
dignity to patriotic observances which occupied three days. 

The Putnam Monument, erected by the State of Connecticut, 
was dedicated June 14, 1888, at Brooklyn, Windham County, 
where General Israel Putnam was buried, June 14, 1790. Gov- 
ernor Phineas C. Lounsbury, the Third Regiment of the Con- 
necticut National Guard, the Putnam Phalanx, the First Ancient 
Company of Governor's Foot Guards, and military delegations 
from Boston, Providence, and New York, were present. The 
tablets on the monument bear the original inscriptions of Put- 
nam's tombstone, which were written by President Timothy 
D wight, of Yale College, grandfather of the present President 
Timothy Dwight, who offered prayer on the occasion. 



172 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE PUTNAM TABLETS. 

Sacred be this Monument 

to the memory of 

Israel Putnam, Esq., 

Senior Major-General in the Armies 

of the United States of America, 

who was born at Salem, 

in the Province of Massachusetts, 

on the 7th day of January, 

A.D.1718, 

and died on the 29th of May, 

A.D. 1790. 

Passenger, 
if thou art a soldier, 
drop a tear over the dust of a hero, 
who, ever attentive 
to the lives and happiness of his men, 
dared to lead 
where any dared to follow. 
If a patriot, remember the distinguished 
and gallant services rendered this country by 
the patriot who sleeps beneath this marble ; if 
thou art honest, generous and worthy, render 
cheerful tribute of respect to a man whose gen- 
erosity was singular, whose honesty was 
proverbial, who raised himself to univers- 
al esteem, and oflSces of eminent dis- 
tinction, by personal worth 
and a useful life. 



FORT MOULTRIE IN 1776 AND 1886. 

Just where the ocean laves Columbia's feet, 
Within a broad expanse of waters blue, 
Two leagues from shore, reposed a city near the sea,- 
Queen of the sunny South, pet of Britannia's crown, 
And by its royal patron christened Charles Town, — 
Heir of his wealth, and haven of his fruitful ships. 
Around the neck of this fair city lay 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 173 

Islands of flowers, Edens of beauty and of wealth, 

Blighter than pearls on fair Cleopatra's breast ; 

Hither the royal Briton came, and Teuton bold, 

Sons of old Scotia and of Erin's emerald isle, 

The lily and the rose of France, exiled from Gallia's soil, — 

All brave men, good and true, who settled there ; 

All Carolina's sons, chivalric, and to honor pledged 

Their altars and their homes to moat with blood 

Should e'er a tyrant's foot their soil invade. 

But on the Northern shore that foot first pressed, 

And on the neck of Boston placed its iron heel. 

" Help, brethren, help !" the guns of Bunker Hill resound, 

And down the whole Atlantic coast the echo rolled. 

Each State sprang up, and Carolina cried, 

" No cent for tribute, but millions for defence !" 

Liberty was dearer than the patronage of kings, — 

She dashed the crown in fragments at her feet, — 

Her heart took fire as came that ringing cry for help, 

And all her islands bristled quickly for defence. 

Where should the British king strike next but at the head 

Of his fair child, the Queen of sunny South, — the Queen, 

Eebel to the kingdom of her royal sire ? 

His squadron ploughed the sea, three hundred guns ; 

A fleet so heavy-armed had never yet before 

Atlantic's surface crossed to scourge Columbia's shore ; 

But on yon island front, just at the sea-gate pass, 

All in a night, upsprang a wall of stout palmetto logs, — 

Weak to the eye, " a very slaughter-pen," said Lee, 

" Of pasteboard made," compared with ribs of English oak ; 

But Moultrie with his Spartan band was there ! 

At morn the sea was white with glistening sails, 

And, frowning as a bursting tempest-cloud, 

The ships' black hulls bore swiftly down, 

Launching their dread armament of mighty guns 

'Grainst that proud fort that dared defy the king. 

Back from its waiting walls, like swords of gleaming gold, 

Bright flames leaped forth from fifty guns, 

Bridging the sea with a span of living fire, 

Heaping the oaken decks with Britain's slain ! 



174 PATRIOTIC READER. 

All day the battle raged ; but with the setting sun 
Moultrie his stout defences held, — the victory won ! 
Once, in the hottest of the fight, the flag went down, 
Shot from the rampart to the reddened strand below, 
But Jasper, leaping through the eddying flame and fire, 
On gunner's staff upreared its folds again ! 

A century has passed since set that battle sun ; 

Again from Moultrie's ramparts sounds the patriot's call, 

" Ye sons of Northern climes, whose cause the South espoused, 

Come, kneel with us, and by this early altar of the free 

Reconsecrate ourselves to truth and liberty ! 

Here come, as willing pilgrims to a Mecca come, 

Hence go, to spread the reign of love and charity !" 

Then Charleston will to Boston shout, 

And cities clap their hands along the shore ; 

The Western mountains to the Eastern nod ; 

The peaceful valleys sing a hymn of joy ; 

Old ocean ripple, all along the coast, 

From North to South, the common anthem of the free. 

And then this mighty commonwealth of States, 

The golden valleys of the West, and fertile slopes, 

Our splendid cities, villages, and quiet homes, 

In one grand brotherhood unite, — 

" No North ! no South ! no East ! no West !" 

Great Sovereign of unnumbered worlds, 
Father of nations, Lord of earth ! 
On this Centennial Day we Thee invoke ! 
Dost Thou not purify the gold by flames ? 
Is not grim War a messenger of Thine for good ? 
Are not the elements but servants at Thy feet ? 
Come, bid the waiting fields return Thy loving glance; 
Stir all the energies of wealth to bless our land ; 
Make liberty our right, our rulers pure, our laws divine ; 
Unite, cement, and bind in one the nation's plans ; 
Oh, keep our people ever free, and pure, and great, 
Until the lamp of day be quenched by Time's concluding night. 

John Thomas Wightman. 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 175 

BUNKER HILL MONUMENT BEGUN. ITS PURPOSE. 
(From Address delivered June 17, 1825.) 

We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most 
safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We 
know that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only 
till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces 
could still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowl- 
edge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history 
charges itself with making known to all future times. We 
know that no inscription on entablatures less broad than the 
earth itself can carry information of the events we commemo- 
rate where it has not already gone; and that no structure, 
which shall not outlive the duration of letters and knowledge 
among men, can prolong the memorial. 

But our object is, by the edifice, to show our deep sense of the 
value and importance of the achievements of our ancestors ; and, 
by presenting this work of gratitude to the eye, to keep alive 
similar sentiments, and to foster a constant regard for the prin- 
ciples of the Revolution. Human beings are composed not of 
reason only, but of imagination also, and sentiment ; and that is 
neither wasted nor misapplied which is appropriated to the pur- 
pose of giving right direction to sentiments and opening proper 
springs of feeling in the heart. 

Let it not be supposed that our object is to perpetuate national 
hostility, or even to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, 
purer, nobler. We consecrate our work to the spirit of national 
independence, and we wish that the light of peace may rest upon 
it forever. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that un- 
measured benefit which has been conferred on our own land, 
and of the happy influences which have been produced by the 
same events on the general interests of mankind. 

We come, as Americans, to mark a spot which must forever 
be dear to us and our posterity. We wish that whosoever, in 
all coming time, shall turn his eye hither, may behold that the 
place is not undistinguished where the first great battle of the 
Revolution was fought, We wish that this structure may pro- 
claim the magnitude and importance of that event to every class 



176 PATRIOTIC READER. 

and every age. We wish that infancy may learn the purpose 
of its erection from maternal lips, and that wearied and withered 
age may behold it, and be solaced by the recollections which it 
suggests. We wish that labor may look up here and be proud 
in the midst of its toil. We wish that in those days of disaster, 
which, as they come on all nations, must be expected to come 
on us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, 
and be assured that the foundations of our national power still 
stand strong. 

We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the 
pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may con- 
tribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of depend- 
ence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object on the 
sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden 
his return to it, may be something which shall remind him of the 
liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise till it meet the sun 
in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and 
parting day linger and play on its summit. 

Daniel Webster. 



THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT COMPLETED. 
(From Address delivered June 17, 1843.) 

The Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands. 
Fortunate in the natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, 
infinitely higher, in its objects and purpose, it rises over the 
land and over the sea ; and visible, at their homes, to three hun- 
dred thousand citizens of Massachusetts, it stands a memorial of 
the last, and a monitor to the present and all succeeding genera- 
tions. 

I have spoken of the loftiness of its purpose. If it had been 
without any other design than the creation of a work of art, the 
granite of which it is composed would have slept in its native 
bed. It has a purpose ; and that purpose gives it character. 
That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral grandeur. 
That well-known purpose it is which causes us to look up to it 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 177 

with a feeling of awe. It is itself the orator of this occasion. 
It is not from my lips, it is not from any human lips, that that 
strain of eloquence is this day to flow most competent to move 
and excite the vast multitudes around. The potent speaker 
stands motionless before them. It is a plain shaft. It bears no 
inscriptions, fronting to the rising sun, from which the future 
antiquarian shall wipe the dust. Nor does the rising sun cause 
tones of music to issue from its summit. But at the rising of 
the sun, and at the setting of the sun, in the blaze of noonday, 
and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light, it looks, it 
speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American 
mind, and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every Amer- 
ican heart. Its silent but awful utterance ; its deep pathos, as 
it brings to our contemplation the 17th of June, 1775, and the 
consequences which have resulted to us, to our country, and to 
the world, from the events of that day, and which, we know 
must continue to rain influence on the destinies of mankind to 
the end of time ; the elevation with which it raises us high above 
the ordinary feelings of life, surpass all that the study of the 
closet, or even the inspiration of genius, can produce. To-day it 
speaks to us. Its future auditories will be through successive 
generations of men, as they rise up before it and gather round 
it. Its speech will be of patriotism and courage ; of civil and 
religious liberty; of free government; of the moral improve- 
ment and elevation of mankind ; and of the immortal memory 
of those who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives 
for their country. 

Daniel "Webster. 



THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT BEGUN. 
(Prom Oration at the laying of the corner-stone, July 4, 1848.) 

Other monuments to this illustrious person have long ago 
been erected. By not a few of the great States of our Union, 
by not a few of the great cities of our States, the chiselled statue 
or the lofty column has been set up in his honor. The highest 
art of the Old World— of France, of Italy, and of England — has 
12 



178 PATRIOTIC RP]ADER. 

been put in requisition for the purpose. Houdon for "Virginia, 
Canova for North Carolina, Sir Francis Chant rey for Massa- 
chusetts, have severally signalized their genius by portraying 
the form and features of the Father of his Country. The mas- 
sive and majestic figure which presides over the precincts of 
the Capitol, and which seems almost in the act of challenging 
a new vow of allegiance to the Constitution and the Union, is 
a visible testimony, and one not less grateful to an American 
eye as being the masterly production of a native artist, that the 
government of the country has not been unmindful of what it 
owes to Washington. 

One tribute to his memory is left to be rendered. One monu- 
ment remains to be reared. A monument which shall bespeak 
the gratitude, not of States, or of cities, or of governments ; not 
of separate communities or of official bodies, but of the people, 
the whole people of the nation ; a national monument, erected 
by the citizens of the United States of America. The people 
themselves are here, in masses such as never before were seen 
within the shadows of the Capitol, — a crowd of witnesses, — to 
bring their heart-felt testimony to the occasion. From all the 
States of the Union, from all political parties, from all profes- 
sions and occupations, men of all sorts and conditions bow, as 
lending the chief ornament and grace to every scene of life. 

The people have come up this day to the temple gates of a 
common and glorious republic to fraternize with each other in 
a fresh act of homage to the memory of the man who was, and 
is, and will forever be, " first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
Welcome, welcome, Americans all! The name of American, 
which belongs to you in your national capacity (I borrow the 
words of Washington himself), must always exalt the just pride 
of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local dis- 
criminations. 

Yes, to-day, fellow-citizens, at the very moment when the ex- 
tension of our boundaries and the multiplication of our territo- 
ries are producing, directly and indirectly, among the different 
members of our political system so many marked and mourned 
centrifugal tendencies, let us seize this occasion to renew to each 
other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American 
Union; and let us recognize, in our common title to the name 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 179 

and the fame of Washington, and in our common veneration for 
his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal power, 
which shall hold the thick-clustering stars of our confederacy 
in one glorious constellation forever ! Let the column which we 
are about to construct be at once a pledge and an emblem of 
perpetual union! Let the foundations be laid, let the super- 
structure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and 
riveted, in a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the 
earliest ray of the rising sun — till that sun shall set to rise no 
more — draw forth from it daily, as from the fabled statue of 
antiquity, a strain of national harmony, which shall strike a 
responsive chord in every heart throughout the republic ! 

Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you 
have assembled ! Lay the corner-stone of a monument which 
shall adequately bespeak the gratitude of the whole American 
people to the illustrious Father of his Country! Build it to 
the skies : you cannot outreach the loftiness of his principles ! 
Pound it upon the massive and eternal rock : you cannot make 
it more enduring than his fame ! Constimct it of the peer- 
less Parian marble : you cannot make it purer than his life ! 
Exhaust upon it the rules and principles of ancient and of 
modern art : you cannot make it more proportionate than his 
character! 

Nor does he need even this. The republic may perish ; the 
wide arch of our ranged union may fall ; star "by star its glories 
may expire; stone after stone its columns and its capitol may 
moulder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals 
may be forgotten ; but as long as human hearts shall any- 
where pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for a sure, 
rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the 
memory, and those tongues shall prolong the fame, of George 
Washington ! 

Robert C. Winthrop. 



180 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT COMPLETED. 
(From Address delivered February 21, 1885.) 

Finis coronat opus. The completion crowns the work ! To- 
day that work speaks for itself, and needs no other orator. 
Assembled in these Legislative Halls of the Nation, to signalize 
the long-delayed accomplishment of so vast a work, it is upon 
him in whose honor it has been upreared. and upon the incom- 
parable and inestimable services that he has rendered to his 
country and to the world, that our thoughts should be con- 
centred at this hour. 

Eighty-five years ago to-morrow, his sixty-eighth birthday, 
was solemnly assigned by Congress for a general manifestation 
of that overwhelming national sorrow, and for the commemora- 
tion, by eulogies, addresses, sermons, and religious rites, of the 
great life which had thus been closed. But long before that 
anniversary arrived, and one day only after the sad tidings 
had reached the seat of government in Philadelphia, President 
John Adams, in reply to a message of the House of Eepresenta- 
tives, had anticipated all panegyrics, by a declaration, as true 
to-day as it was then, that he was " the most illustrious and 
beloved personage which this country ever produced ;" while 
Henry Lee, of Virginia, through the lips of John Marshall, had 
summed up and condensed all that was felt, and all that could 
be, or ever can be, said, in those imperishable words, which go 
ringing down the centuries, in every clime, in every tongue, till 
time shall be no more, — " First in War, First in Peace, and 
First in the hearts of his Countrymen." 

The character of Washington ! Who can delineate it worthily ? 
Who can describe that priceless gift of America to the world, in 
terms Avhich may do it any sort of justice, or afford any degree 
of satisfaction to his hearers, or to himself? That character 
stands apart and alone. But of mere mortal men, the monument 
we have dedicated to-day points out the one for all Americans 
to study, to imitate, and, as far as may be, to emulate. Keep 
his example and his character ever before you in your hearts ! 
Live and act as if he were seeing and judging your personal 
conduct and your public career ! Strive to approximate that 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 181 

lofty standard, and measure your integrity and your patriotism 
by your nearness to it, or your departure from it. 

Yes, to the young men of America, under God, it remains, as 
they rise up from generation to generation, to shape the destinies 
of their country's future ; and woe unto them if, regardless of 
the great example which is set before them, they prove unfaith- 
ful to the tremendous responsibilities which rest upon them ! 

Our matchless obelisk stands proudly before us to-day, and 
we hail it with the exultations of a united and glorious nation. 
It may, or may not, be proof against the cavils of critics; 
but nothing of human construction is proof against the casual- 
ties of time. The storms of winter must blow and beat upon 
it ! The action of the elements must soil and discolor it ! The 
lightnings of heaven may scar and blacken it ! An earthquake 
may shake its foundations ! Some mighty tornado, or resistless 
cyclone, may rend its massive blocks asunder and hurl huge 
fragments to the ground ! But the character which it commem- 
orates and illustrates is secure ! It will remain unchanged, and 
unchangeable, in all its consummate purity and splendor, and 
will more and more command the homage of succeeding ages 
in all regions of the earth. 

God be praised, that character is ours forever I 

Kobert Charles Winthrop. 



THE PERRY MONUMENT DEDICATED. 

(From Address delivered September 10, 1860.) 

Men op Ohio, Fellow-Citizens op the United States, — 

The defence of our country is not a burden to be shunned, 
but an inalienable right which we are to assert, and a sacred 
duty which we are to fulfil. The heroic deeds of those who, 
in manly battle, have stood up for the moral existence of 
the nation, and given the greatest proof of their love for it 
by perilling their lives in its defence, deserve to be commem- 
orated by works of art, that the evidence of their virtue may 



182 PATRIOTIC READER. 

be ever present to the eye of the people. By our willing sym- 
pathy with their efforts we make their glory our own ; by con- 
templating their actions with love we renew in our own breasts 
the just courage with which they glowed, and gain the ennobling 
consciousness that we too have the power within us to imitate 
their example. 

The inhabitants of this Commonwealth are allied, by their 
descent of common blood, with nearly all the older United States 
and all the most highly civilized countries of the world. The 
homes of their ancestors are to be found in the Old Dominion 
and all the States to the north of it, in the British Isles and 
Ireland, in the Iberian peninsula, in France, in Italy, and in all 
the Continental states, especially of Germany, so that in addi- 
tion to the mysterious affinity of human nature with truth and 
freedom, no word can be uttered in any pai*t of the civilized 
world, but you may claim in it, a family interest of jour own. 
Citizens of Cleveland, cheered by the patriotic zeal of an artist, 
a native of the State, have raised the monument now dedicated 
to the Union, in the name of the people of Ohio. 

Ohio, a Commonwealth j'ounger in years than he who now 
addresses you, not long ago having no visible existence but in 
the emigrant wagons, now numbers almost as large a population 
as that of all England when it gave birth to Baleigh and Bacon 
and Shakespeare, and began its work of colonizing America. 
In the very heart of the temperate zone of this continent, in 
the land of corn, of wheat and the vine, the eldest daughter of 
the Ordinance of 1787, already the mother of other Common- 
wealths that bid fair to vie with her in beauty, rises in her 
loveliness and glory, crowned with cities, and challenges the 
admiration of the world. 

This anniversary of the great action of Oliver Hazard Perry 
is set apart for inaugurating a monument to his fame. Forty- 
seven years ago, the young hero, still weak from a wasting fever, 
led his squadron to battle. Ever in advance, almost alone, for 
two hours fighting his ship, till it became a wreck, with more 
than four-fifths of his crew around him wounded or killed, he 
passed in a boat to the uninjured Niagara, unfurled his Hag, bore 
down wit bin pistol-shot of his enemy, poured into them broadsides 
starboard, and broadsides port, and while the sun was still high 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 183 

the horizon, left no office to be done but that of mercy 
to the vanquished. 

Nor may you omit due honors to the unrecoi'ded dead ; not as 
mourners who require consolation, but with a clear conception 
of the glory of their end. To die, if need be, in defence of 
country is a common obligation ; it is granted to few to exchange 
life for a victory so full of benefits to their fellow-men. These are 
the disinterested unnamed martyrs, who, without hope of fame 
or gain, gave up their lives in testimony to the all-pervading love 
of country, and left to our statesmen the lesson, to demand of 
others nothing but what is right, and to submit to no wrong. 
" We have met the enemy," were the words of Perry, as he 
reported the battle, " and they are ours." The men who honor 
the memory of Perry will always know how to defend the 
domain of their country. 

So, then, our last words shall be for the Union. The Union 
will guard the fame of its defenders, will keep alive for mankind 
the beacon-lights of popular liberty and power; and its mighty 
heart will throb with delight at every true advance in any part 
of the world towards republican happiness and freedom. 

George Bancroft. 



THE SARATOGA MONUMENT BEGUN. 
(From Address delivered October 18, 1877.) 

One hundred years ago, on this spot, American independence 
was made a great fact in the history of nations. Until the Bur- 
render of the British army under Burgoyne, the Declaration of 
Independence was but a declaration. It was a patriotic purpose 
asserted in bold words by brave men, who pledged for its main- 
tenance their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. But 
here it was made a fact, by virtue of armed force. It had been 
regarded by the world merely as an act of defiance, but it 
was now seen that it contained the germs of a government 
which the event we celebrate made one of the powers of the 
earth. Here rebellion was made revolution. Upon this ground, 
that which had in the eye of the law been treason, became 



184 PATRIOTIC READER. 

triumphant patriotism. At the break of day, in the judgment 
of the world, our fathers were rebels. When the echoes of the 
evening gun died away along this valley, they were patriots who 
had rescued their country from wrong and outrage. We had 
passed through the baptism of blood, and gained a name among 
the nations of the earth. 

Before the Bevolution the people of the several colonies held 
but little intercourse. They were estranged from each other by 
distance, by sectional prejudices, by differences of lineage and 
religious creeds. But when the men of Virginia went to Massa- 
chusetts to rescue Boston, when the men of the East and South 
battled side by side with those from the Middle States, when 
Greene and Lincoln went to the relief of the Southern colonies, 
all prejudices not only died away, but more than fraternal love 
animated every patriotic heart from the bleak forests of New 
England to the milder airs of Georgia. And now that a hundred 
years have passed, and our country has become great beyond 
the wildest dreams of our fathers, will not the story of their suf- 
ferings revive in the breast of all the love of our country, of our 
common country, and all who live within its boundaries? 

It was the most remarkable fact of the Eevolutionary war 
and of the formation of State and national governments, that 
although the colonists were of different lineages and languages, 
living under different climates, with varied pursuits and forms 
of labor, cut off from intercourse by distance, yet, in spite of all 
these obstacles to accord, they were from the outset animated 
by common views, feelings, and purposes. When the indepen- 
dence was gained, they were able, after a few weeks spent in 
consultation, to form the constitution under which we have 
lived for nearly one hundred years. There can be no stronger 
proof that American institutions were born and shaped by Amer- 
ican necessities. This fact should give us new faith in the last- 
ing nature of our government. 

Monuments make as well as mark the civilization of a people. 
The surrender of Burgoyue marks the dividing line between 
two conditions of our country : the one the colonial period of 
dependence, and the other the day from which it stood full-armed 
and victorious here, endowed with a boldness to assert its inde- 
pendence, and endowed with a wisdom to frame its own system 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 185 

of government. We are told that during more than twenty- 
centuries of war and bloodshed, only fifteen battles have been 
decisive of lasting results. The contest of Saratoga is one of 
them. Shall not some suitable structure recall this fact to the 
public mind? Neither France, nor Britain, nor Germany could 
spare the statues or works of art which keep alive the memory 
of patriotic services or of personal virtues. Such silent teachers 
of all that ennobles men, have taught their lessons through the 
darkest ages, and have done much to save society from sinking 
into utter decay and degradation. If Greece or Eome had left 
no memorials of private virtues or public greatness, the prog- 
ress of civilization would have been slow and feeble. If their 
crumbling remains should be swept away, the world would mourn 
the loss, not only to learning and arts, but to virtue and patriot- 
ism. It concerns the honor and welfare of the American people 
that this spot should be marked by some structure which should 
recall its history and animate all, who look upon it, by its grand 
teachings. No people ever held lasting power or greatness who 
did not reverence the virtues of their fathers, or who did not 
show forth this reverence by material and striking testimonials. 
Let us, then, build here, a lasting monument, which shall tell 
of our gratitude to those who, through suffering and sacrifice, 
wrought out the independence of our country. 

Horatio Seymour. 



THE SARATOGA LESSON. 

(Prom Address delivered October 17, 1877.) 

The drama of the Revolution opened in New England, cul- 
minated in New York, and closed in Virginia. It was a happy 
fortune that the three colonies which represented the various 
territorial sections of the settled continent were each, in turn, the 
chief seat of war. The common sacrifice, the common struggle, 
the common triumph, tended to weld them locally, politically, 
and morally together. Doubtless there were conflicts of provin- 
cial pride and jealousy and suspicion. In every great crisis of 



186 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the war, however, there was a common impulse and devotion, 
and the welfare of the continent obliterated provincial lines. 

It is by the few heaven-piercing peaks, not by the confused 
mass of upland, that we measure the height of the Andes, of the 
Alps, of the Himalaya. It is by Joseph Warren not by Benja- 
min Church, by John Jay not by Sir John Johnson, by George 
Washington not by Benedict Arnold, that we test the quality 
of the Revolutionary character. The voice of Patrick Henry 
from the mountains answered that of James Otis by the sea. 
Paul Bevere's lantern shone along through the valley of the 
Hudson, and flashed along the cliff's of the Blue Bidge. The 
scattering volley of Lexington green swelled to the triumphant 
thunder of Saratoga, and the reverberation of Burgoyne's fall- 
ing arms in New York shook those of Cornwallis in Virginia 
from his hands. Doubts, jealousies, prejudices, were merged in 
one common devotion. The union of the colonies to secure 
libertjr, foretold the union of the States to maintain it, and 
wherever we stand on Revolutionary fields, or inhale the sweet- 
ness of Revolutionary memories, we tread the ground and breathe 
the air of invincible national union. 

So, upon this famous and decisive field, let every unworthy 
feeling perish ! Here, to the England that we fought, let us 
now, grown great and strong with a hundred years, hold out 
the hand of fellowship and peace ! Here, where the English Bur- 
goyne, in the very moment of his bitter humiliation, generously 
pledged George Washington, let us, in our high hour of triumph, 
of power, and of hope, pledge the queen ! Here, in the grave of 
brave and unknown foemen, may mutual jealousies and doubts 
and animosities lie buried forever! Henceforth, revering their 
common glorious traditions, may England and America press 
forward side by side, in noble and inspiring rivalry to promote 
the welfare of man ! 

Fellow-citizens, with the story of Burgoyne's surrender, the 
Revolutionary glory of the State of New York, still fresh in our 
memories, I am glad that the hallowed spot on which wc stand 
compels us to remember not only the imperial State, but the 
national Commonwealth, whose young hands here together 
struck the blow, and on whose older head descends the ample 
benediction of the victory. On yonder height, a hundred years 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 187 

ago, Virginia and Pennsylvania lay encamped. Beyond, and 
further to the north, watched New Hampshire and Vermont. 
Here, in the wooded uplands at the south, stood New Jersey and 
New York, while across the river to the east, Connecticut and 
Massachusetts closed the triumphant line. Here was the symbol 
of the Eevolution, a common cause, a common strife, a common 
triumph ; the cause, not of a class, but of human nature ; the 
triumph, not of a colony, but of united America. 

And we who stand here proudly remembering, we who have 
seen Virginia and New York, the North and the South, more 
bitterly hostile than the armies whose battles shook this ground, 
we who mutually j>roved in deadlier conflict the constancy and 
courage of all the States, which, proud to be peers, yet own no 
master but their united selves, we renew our heart's imperisha- 
ble devotion to the common American faith, the common Amer- 
ican pride, the common American glory ! Here Americans stood 
and triumphed. Here Americans stand and bless their memory. 
And here, for a thousand years, may grateful generations of 
Americans come to rehearse the glorious story, and to rejoice 
in a supreme and benignant American nationality ! 

George William Curtis. 



THE MONMOUTH MONUMENT BEGUN. 

(From Historical Address delivered June 28, 1878.) 

The battle of Monmouth exhibited a bold offensive return by 
a retreating army against an equal or superior force in pur- 
suit. A strong naval detachment had sailed from France to aid 
America. Its arrival in the Delaware would render the British 
retention of Philadelphia impossible, as no reinforcements could 
be supplied from New York, and the British Ministry had al- 
ready decided to transfer active operations to the Southern 
colonies. To reach New York, with the least possible loss, was 
the greatest possible success remaining to General Clinton. The 
attempt induced the battle of Monmouth. It has been asserted 
that his evacuation of Philadelphia, on the 18th of June, 1778, 



188 PATRIOTIC READER. 

surprised the American commander-in-chief. On the contrary, 
the occupation of the American capital by General Howe, in 
1777, had been at the cost of Burgoyne's army ; and its reten- 
tion by Clinton had been deemed so unwise, as a purely military 
measure, that, as early as May 19, General Washington seriously 
entertained the purpose of dislodging the British garrison by 
force. 

After the arrival of Baron Steuben at the Valley Forge camp, 
February 27, 1778, the discipline of the American army assumed 
exactness and rigor. Plans for an offensive campaign were as 
freely discussed as if the entire theatre of war had become open 
for choice of movement. This fact alone illustrates the habitual 
purpose of Washington to follow his own convictions of duty 
in all great crises, and the wisdom of his calm independence of 
all councils of war on grave occasions. He readily courted sug- 
gestions, but never divided command or avoided responsibility. 

The battle of Monmouth was deliberately forced by Wash- 
ington against the opinion of a majority of his general officers, 
Charles Lee included. He clearly understood the impetus which 
offensive operations on his part would give to the cause of liberty. 
Trenton and Germantown had previously vindicated his course, 
at times when the best strategy had been proved to be the 
boldest execution of movements least anticipated by his enemy. 
His faith never wavered ! He held his army as in his very brain, 
and expected it to obey and execute his will as truly as his war- 
horse minded the rein. The military career of George Wash- 
ington gained honor and shone with splendor on this same field 
of Monmouth ! Historians of that day rendered tribute ; and 
a century of liberty, to a people enfranchised through his valor, 
has only deepened the purpose to honor his name forever. 

People of New Jersey, you do well to honor the battle of 
Monmouth by the story-telling monument! Your soil for five 
years, five terrible years, was one constant field of plunder and 
bloodshed. It was the central, the constant battle-ground of 
the Eevolution. There was no rest for your fathers ; there was 
no home for your mothers ; there was no sanctuary inviolate ! 
You occupied the highway between the North and the South ; 
between New York and the national capital. 

How marvellous were the patience, the temper, and the faith 



MONUMENTAL MEMOEIALS HONORED. 189 

among your people ! New Jersey women exemplified the per- 
fection of woman-kind ! The militia of New Jersey could 
neither be bought nor crushed ! Grateful for your summons to 
share this daj^'s honors and contribute, so far as I may, to an 
abiding record of the events you commemorate, I would once 
again repeat those prophetic words, already realized, with which 
Washington pronounced the war for American independence 
ended : 

"Happy, thrice happy, shall they be pronounced, hereafter, 
who have contributed anything, who have performed the mean- 
est office in erecting this stupendous fabric of empire on the 
broad basis of independency; who have assisted in protecting 
the rights of human nature and establishing an asylum for the 
poor and oppressed of all nations and religions." 



THE GROTON HEIGHTS MONUMENT. 

(From Historical Sketch, September 6, 1879.) 

The battle of Groton Heights must be viewed in its relations 
to other events of the Eevolution. It was not a single and 
isolated event. It was a scene in the great act which closed at 
Yorktown in the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. Groton Heights 
stands connected with Yorktown. Had there been no siege of 
Yorktown there would have been no battle of Groton Heights, 
and no burning of New London. During the summer of 1781 
the Continental government had been informed that a fleet and 
a body of troops was about to arrive from France, under Count 
de Grasse, to co-operate with the American forces against the 
British. Washington and Eochambeau had held an interview, 
and resolved to lay siege to New York and wrest it from the 
British. General Clinton, commander-in-chief of the British 
forces, began to bend everything to the defence of this strong- 
hold. While these preparations were going on for the defence 
of New York, Washington changed his purpose, and determined 
upon the more feasible plan of laying siege to the army of Corn- 
wallis in Virginia. So effectually did he conceal his ultimate 
design that he marched his forces around New York, crossed 



190 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the Hudson, made rapid marches through the State of New 
Jersey, and was well on his way towards the head of Chesa- 
peake Bay before General Clinton suspected that his movements 
had any other end in view than the siege of New York. The 
British general aimed to draw him back, and for that purpose 
planned a diversion into Connecticut, the colony that had fur- 
nished the largest quotas to the Continental army, the com- 
monwealth of Washington's dear friend and faithful supporter, 
Jonathan Trumbull. Benedict Arnold, "that infamous traitor," 
had just returned from an expedition into Virginia, in which he 
marked his path with conflagration and slaughter. 

Great preparations were made. At ten o'clock, Thursday 
morning, September 6, 1781, the British troops landed in two 
divisions, of about eight hundred men each, on either side of the 
river; that on the New London side, under the traitor Arnold ; 
that on the Groton side, under Lieutenant-Colonel Eja'e. Cap- 
tain Adam Shapley having only twenty-three men at Fort 
Trumbull, a mere water-battery, open from behind, spiked his 
guns, and with sixteen men crossed the river to Fort Griswold. 
There were now one hundred and sixty men in that fort. To 
the impudent demand of the British officer, Captain Beckwith, 
Colonel William Ledyard, in command, replied that " he would 
defend the fort to the last." 

It was now between eleven and twelve o'clock. Arnold 
stood on the tomb of the Winthrops, in the old burying-ground, 
and, with his field-glass, surveyed the scene. What conflict of 
emotion boiled in the breast of the arch-traitor as he cast his eye 
around the happy scene of his early life which he was now 
ravishing with sword and torch, Ave may not know. His official 
report reads, "After a most obstinate defence of forty minutes 
the fort was carried by the superior bravery of our battalions." 

It was the hour of noon. The battle had begun. Colonel 
Ayre led one regiment and Major Montgomery the other to the 
assault. With gleaming guns and nodding plumes they extend 
a long and fiery wave from north to south and fill the field. 
Wiih shouts and yells they rend the air; over walls and rocks, 
over fields of ripening corn, through upland pastures, on they 
come like madmen. Time would fail to tell how Captain Elias 
llalsey with an eighteen-pounder swept twenty red-coats down, 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 191 

how Captain Shapley wounded Colonel Byre, how Gordon Free- 
man, Ledyard's colored man, ran a boat-pike through brave 
Major Montgomery, and he fell lifeless back. Stephen Hemp- 
stead with his pike, bis left hand wounded, cleared a breach. 
Samuel Edgcwood raised great cannon-balls and smote the as- 
sailants in the ditcb below. Park Avery, in the hottest of the 
fight, cheered his son, a lad of seventeen, and the next moment 
saw him bite the dust. Belton Avery, a gentle, pious boy, fell 
on the ramparts and went up to heaven. With gun-sticks, pikes, 
and cannon-balls they fought in hand encounter, one against 
five. The dead, the dying, and the wounded that lay in the 
trenches and fields around, the work of the stout-hearted little 
garrison, made a total of one hundred and ninety-three, — thirty- 
three more than were in the garrison. Surely, our brave sires 
were not the only sufferers that 6th of September, 1781 ! 

Stephen Hempstead says " they had attacked twice with great 
vigor, and were repulsed with equal firmness," when a shot cut 
the flag from the halyards. Until this moment our loss had 
been only six or seven killed and eighteen wounded. The 
enemy, supposing the flag to have been struck, rushed with re- 
doubled impetuosity, carried the southwest bastion by storm, 
crossed the parade, and unbarred the gates. A British officer 
shouted, "Who commands this fort?" " I did, sir," was Colonel 
Ledyard's reply, as he tendered his sword, " but you do now." 
His sword was thrust through his body by the hand that re- 
ceived it. This was the signal for indiscriminate slaughter. 
Blood flowed over all the area and hid the greensward. They 
trod in blood! There was blood in the magazine and in the 
barracks ; blood was on the platform ; blood was everywhere ! 
There they lay in heaps, fallen one upon another, scarce twenty, 
out of one hundred and thirty able-bodied men when the British 
entered, able to stand upon their feet. There they lay, as brave 
a band as fought with Leonidas at Therrnopyke. At sunset 
Arnold set sail for New York. Deplorable and costly as it was 
to the British, as a strategic movement it was an utter failure. 
Washington scarcely deigned to notice it. Instead of sending 
troops into Connecticut, he drew them all into Virginia, and 
Yorktown decided the campaign. 

John Joseph Copp. 



192 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE GROTON HEIGHTS LESSON. 
(From Address delivered September 6, 1879.) 

Two facts, illustrated to the eye, must be held as characteristic 
of the State of Connecticut in its relation to the War of Inde- 
pendence. The first is, that bloodiest and most atrocious deed 
of all the war, which is commemorated by the lofty obelisk 
beside us. The other is, that this should be the only battle- 
monument within the State, — and the State itself without battle- 
fields of later date than the war with the Pequot savages, if we 
except the skirmish at Danbury, in 1777, and the invasion of 
New Haven, in 1779. These instances are the only ones in the 
history of two hundred years in which an armed force of an 
enemy remained over-night upon her soil. In Connecticut there 
never was a revolutionary war ! She entered the struggle for inde- 
pendence complete, with her governor, and council, and the whole 
machinery of the colonial government. In other colonies there was 
more or less revolution. "We, in Connecticut, fought, not for the 
achieving of new liberties, but for the defence of the old. . . . 

As early as 1778, Governor Trumbull wrote to the Tory Tryon, 

" The barbarous inhumanity which has marked the prosecution of the war on 
your part, the insolence which displays itself on every petty advantage, and 
the cruelties exercised on those whom the fortune of war has thrown into your 
hands, are inseparable bars to the very idea of any peace with Great Britain 
on any other conditions than the most perfect and absolute independence." 

At length it seemed that History had completed her dramatic 
preparations, and that the curtain was ready to rise upon such 
a scene of slaughter. Arnold, once the most brilliant officer in 
the Continental service, was a traitor in disgrace, fleeing from 
the sight of honorable and patriotic men and loathed by those 
who had bought him and were ready to use him on the base 
business, unworthy of the name of war, to which they had now 
resolved to stoop. Only a brief rehearsal of his part, by the 
burning of Richmond and the devastation of other parts of Vir- 
ginia, and Arnold was ready, one year from the date of his 
treason, to disembark, in the bright daylight of the morning of 
September 6, 1781, with his band of foreign incendiaries and 
assassins, take his stand on the tomb of the Winthrops, and 
direct the destruction of the town and the slaughter of his fel- 
low-citizens and neighbors. . . . 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 193 

There is a curious superficial resemblance to be observed be- 
tween the battle of Groton Heights and the battle of Bunker 
Hill. In each case there was the storming of a hill-top fort by a 
vastly superior force of regular troops, against a scanty garrison 
of untrained militia. In each case the successful storm was ac- 
companied by burning the neighboring town. In each case the 
military event is commemorated by a granite obelisk, and the 
memory of it is cherished proudly as more precious than the 
memory of many victories. Even as the brave fighting of the 
farmers of Bunker Hill committed the people to the commence- 
ment of the war, so the more heroic suffering and dying of the 
martyrs of Groton Heights made it thenceforth impossible to 
think of compromises and concessions, which the British gov- 
ernment had been offering to the American people on condition 
of their renewed allegiance. After the death of Ledyard and 
his neighbors there could be no end of the war but in victory. 
The victory was not far away, indeed, for the glory of York- 
town was nigh at hand. But there was need, nevertheless, 
for the horror of Groton Heights. The blood of all these mar- 
tyrs was not spilled in vain ! . . . 

fellow-citizens of Connecticut, and especially men of Groton, 
children of these martyred heroes, be proud of the stock from 
which you are descended — proud, with that worthy and honest 
pride which "shall lead you to emulate the virtues of the race 
from which you are sprung ! You do well to build your school- 
house in the shadow of this lofty obelisk, and to let this arena 
of the bloody struggle be trodden, year by year, in the happy 
sports of boys and girls. But think what a shame it would be 
before the world if the children of such ancestors should prove 
recreant to their glorious name ! Think what a legacy of glory 
and ennobling responsibility has come down to you, to be kept 
and handed down, unimpaired and enhanced, to your children 
after you ! 

" Guard well your trust, — 

The faith that dared the sea, 

The truth that made them free, 

Their cherished purity, 
Their garnered dust." 

Leonard Woolsky Bacon. 

13 



194 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE YORKTOWN MONUMENT BEGUN. 
(Extract from Centennial Address, October 18, 1881.) 

Yes, it is mine, and somewhat peculiarly mine, perhaps, not- 
withstanding the presence of the official representatives of my 
native State, to bear the greetings of Plymouth Kock to James- 
town ; of Bunker Hill to Yorktown ; of Boston, recovered from 
the British forces in '76, to Mount Vernon, the home in life and 
death of her illustrious Deliverer; and there is no office within 
the gift of Congresses, Presidents, or People, which I could dis- 
charge more cordially and fervently. . . . 

Our earliest and our latest acknowledgments are due this day 
to France for the inestimable services which gave us the crown- 
ing victory of the 19th of October, 1781. It matters not for us 
to speculate now whether American independence might not 
have been ultimately achieved without her aid. We all know 
that, God willing, such a consummation was certain in the end, 
as to-morrow's sunrise, and that no earthly potentates or 
powers, single or conjoined, could have carried us back into a 
permanent condition of colonial dependence and subjugation. 
Nor need we be curious to inquire into any special inducements 
which France may have had to intervene thus nobly in our 
behalf. . . . 

Nearly two years before the treaties of Franklin were nego- 
tiated and signed, the young Lafayette, then but nineteen j^ears 
of age, a captain of French dragoons, stationed at Metz, at a 
dinner given by the commandant of the garrison to the Duke 
of Gloucester, a brother of George III., happened to hear the 
tidings of our Declaration of Independence, which had reached 
the duke that very day from London. It formed the subject of 
animated and excited conversation, in which the enthusiastic 
young soldier took part, and before he had left the table an in- 
extinguishable spark had been struck and kindled in his breast, 
and his whole heart was on fire in the cause of American liberty. 
Kegardless of the remonstrances of his friends, of the ministry, 
and of the king himself, in spite of every discouragement and 
obstacle, he soon tears himself away from a young and lovely 
wife, leaps on board a vessel which he had provided for himself, 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 195 

braves the perils of a voyage across the Atlantic, then swarming 
with cruisers, reaches Philadelphia by way of Charleston, South 
Carolina, and so wins at once the regard and confidence of the 
Continental Congress by his avowed desire to risk his life in our 
service, at his own expense, without pay or allowance of any 
sort, that, on the 31st of July, 1777, before he was yet quite 
twenty years of age, he was commissioned a major-general in 
the army of the United States. 

It is hardly too much to say that from that dinner at Metz, 
and that 31st of July, in Philadelphia, may be dated the train 
of influences and events which culminated four years afterwards 
in the surrender of Cornwallis to the allied forces of America 
and France. Presented to our great Virginian commander-in- 
chief a few days only after his commission was voted by Con- 
gress, an intimacy, a friendship, an affection grew up between 
them almost at sight. Invited to become a member of his mili- 
tary family, and treated with the tenderness of a son, Lafayette 
is henceforth to be not only the beloved and trusted associate 
of Washington, but a living tie between his native and his 
almost adopted country. Eeturning to France in January, 1779, 
after eighteen months of brave and valuable service here, during 
which he had been wounded at Brandywine, had exhibited signal 
gallantry and skill at Monmouth, and had received the thanks 
of Congress for important services in Ehode Island, he was 
now in the way of appealing personally to the French minis- 
try to send an army and fleet to our assistance. He did appeal ; 
and the zeal and force of his arguments at length prevailed. 
The young marquis, to whom alone the decision of the king was 
received, hastens back with eager joy to announce the glad 
tidings to Washington, and to arrange with him for the recep- 
tion and employment of the auxiliary forces. 

Accordingly, on the 10th of July, 1780, a squadron of the 
ships of war brings Eochambeau with six thousand French 
troops into the harbor of Newport, with instructions "to act 
under Washington, and live with the American officers as their 
brethren," and the American officers are forthwith desired by 
Washington, in General Orders, — "to wear white and black 
cockades as a symbol of affection for their allies." 

Nearly a full year, however, was to elapse before the rich 



196 PATRIOTIC READER. 

fruits of that alliance were to be developed, — a year of the great- 
est discouragement and gloom for the American cause. The 
war on our side seemed languishing. As late as the 9th of 
April, 1781, Washington wrote to Colonel John Laurens, who 
had gone on a special mission to Paris, " If France delays a 
timely and powerful aid in the critical juncture of our affairs, 
it will avail us nothing should she attempt it hereafter. We are 
at this hour suspended in the balance. In a word, we are at the 
end of our tether, and now or never our deliverance must come." 

God's holy name be praised, deliverance was to come, and did 
come, now! On the 3d of September, 1781, the united armies 
reached Philadelphia, where, Congress being in session, the 
French army " paid it the honors which the king had ordered 
us to pay," as we are told in the journal of the gallant Count 
William de Deux Ponts. ... On the 19th of October the arti- 
cles were signed by which the garrisons of York and Gloucester, 
together with all the officers and seamen of the British ships in 
the Chesapeake, " surrender themselves prisoners of war to the 
combined forces of America and France." 

Robert Charles Winthrop. 



THE YORKTOWN LESSON. 
(Closing passage from Centennial Address, October 18, 1881.) 

Fellow-Citizens op the United States, — 

Citizens of the old Thirteen of the Eevolution, and citizens of 
the new Twenty-five, whose stars are now glittering with no 
inferior lustre in our glorious galaxy, — yes, and Citizens of the 
still other States which I dare not attempt to number, but 
which are destined at no distant period to be evolved from our 
imperial Texas and Territories, — I hail you all as brothers to- 
day, and call upon you all, as you advance in successive genera- 
tions, to stand fast in the faith of the fathers, and to uphold 
and maintain unimpaired the matchless institutions which are 
now ours ! " You are the advanced guard of the human race ; 
you have the future of the world," said Madame de Stael to a 
distinguished American, recalling with pride what France had 
done for us at Yorktown. Let us lift ourselves to a full sense 



MONUMENTAL, MEMORIALS HONORED. 197 

of such a responsibility for the progress of freedom, in other 
lands as well as in our own. Next, certainly, to promoting the 
greatest good of the greatest number at home, the supreme 
mission of our country is to hold up before the eyes of all man- 
kind a practical, well-regulated, successful system of Free, Con- 
stitutional government, purely administered and loyally sup- 
ported, giving assurance and furnishing proof that true Liberty 
is not incompatible with the maintenance of Order, with obedi- 
ence to Law, and with a lofty standard of political and social 
Yirtue. . . . 

We cannot escape from the great responsibility of this great 
intervention of American Example; and it involves nothing less 
than the hope or the despair of the Ages ! Let us strive, then, to 
aid and advance the Liberty of the world, in the only legitimate 
way in our power, by patriotic fidelity and devotion in upholding, 
illustrating, and adorning our own free institutions. " Spartam 
nactus es : Hanc exorna !" There is no limit to our prosperity 
and welfare if we are true to those institutions. We have noth- 
ing now to fear except from ourselves. We are One by the 
configuration of nature and by the strong impress of art, — inex- 
tricably entwined by the lay of our land, the run of our rivers, 
the chain of our lakes, and the iron network of our crossing and 
recrossing and ever-multiplying and still advancing tracks of 
trade and travel. We are One by the memories of our fathers. 
We are One by the hopes of our children. We are One by a 
Constitution and a Union which have not only survived the 
shock of Foreign and of Civil war, but have stood the abeyance 
of almost all administration, while the whole people were wait- 
ing breathless, in alternate hope and fear, for the issues of an 
execrable crime. With the surrender to each other of all our old 
sectional animosities and prejudices, let us be One, henceforth 
and always, in mutual regard, conciliation, and affection ! 

" Go on, hand in hand, O States, never to be disunited ! Be 
the praise and the heroic song of all posterity !" On this aus- 
picious day let me invoke, as I devoutly and fervently do, the 
choicest and richest blessings of Heaven on those who shall do 
most, in all time to come, to preserve our beloved country in 

UNITY, PEACE, and CONCORD. 

Robert Charles Winthrop. 



198 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE BENNINGTON MONUMENT BEGUN. 
(From Address delivered August 16, 1887.) 

We gather on this anniversary day to lay the corner-stone 
of a monument which shall fitly commemorate the great event 
known in our history as the battle of Bennington. The story 
has been often told by sire to son, and by grandsire to wondering 
grandchildren gathered at his knee. It was from these homes 
about us that so many went out to meet and stay the invader. 
It is in many of these peaceful homes that their kindred and 
descendants now live. At each recurring anniversary the story 
has been rehearsed anew, a theme fruitful of impassioned ora- 
tory, an inspiration to the poet, and embalmed by the historian. 

The summer of 1777 was a season of gloom and depression in 
the American colonies. They were scattered, incoherent, with- 
out funds and appliances to cope with the rich and powerful 
mother-country. The Tories were exultant. The timid were 
halting between two. The leaders, even, were despondent. 
On the 6th of July Burgoyne captured Ticonderoga, and on 
the next day, at Hubbardton, routed the rear-guard of our re- 
treating army. At this critical moment the Council of Safety, 
then the provisional government of Yermont, appealed to Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire for aid. 

Eight nobly did they respond, and " Ho. to the borders !" rang 
through the hills of New Hampshire and echoed along the 
valleys of Berkshire and Worcester. John Stark with stalwart 
men from the granite hills came marching across the moun- 
tains. Colonel Simonds rallied the men from Berkshire, and 
Warner, Herrick, Williams, and Brush, with their Vermonters, 
came also. 

Probably few, if any, of those engaged in the battle began to 
measure the momentous consequences which hung upon its issue. 
Our fathers " builded better than they knew." The moral qual- 
ity of their action lies in their ready, unselfish loyalty to a 
perilous duty and their prompt response to its call at the risk 
of life itself. 

Did time serve, I might dwell upon the personal characteristics 
of the men who then dwelt in this region, of their manly fortitude 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 199 

in time of trial, of the wisdom and moderation which marked 
their deliberations, of the courage with which they confronted 
all adversaries, of their respect for rightful authority, and their 
hatred of its abuse. I might tell how they braved the dangers of 
the frontier forest and subdued it to the uses of advancing civili- 
zation, how civil order prevailed while yet there was no organ- 
ized power, legislative, executive, or judicial, by which those 
functions could be exercised, and yet, such was the self-governing 
capacity of those pioneers, for the most part plain farmers, that 
without the ordinary appliances for the maintenance of private 
rights, public rights, and public order, they held them secure, 
gave of their scanty means, without stint, and offered themselves 
a ready sacrifice in support of the common cause. Of all this, 
Ticonderoga, Hubbardton, Bennington, and Saratoga will stand 
as witnesses forever. 

They were no carpet-knights nor plumed cavaliers playing 
fantastic tricks of knight-errantry. They were grim fighters, 
and they fought in their every-day clothes. Every patriot bullet 
was winged and instinct with the loftiest inspiration of a cour- 
age born of faith in God and in His eternal principles of justice, 
and in deathless devotion to country. That word country meant 
far more to them than it did to the Greeks at Marathon. To 
them, country stood for the people, secure in all natural rights, 
and all the social and civil free institutions essential to their 
preservation. They were living epistles of a new faith. They 
were yeomen, warriors, statesmen. They were fit founders of a 
new system of government, so well epitomized by the immortal 
Lincoln as a " government of the people, for the people, by the 
people." In this faith they lived, and for its triumphant estab- 
lishment they fought and conquered on yonder hill-side. The 
honor of their grand achievement is the glorious inheritance 
of the three New England States represented here to-day, from 
whose valleys and hill-sides their patriotic sons so swiftly rallied 
at the call of country. The fruits of their victory are the com- 
mon heritage of the whole country for all time to come. Their 
heroic example is for all time. The heroic life or heroic death 
in a just cause, though apparently hopeless, will some time bear 
rich harvest in reconversion into successful heroic action inspired 
by example. We begin now the erection of a majestic and en- 



200 PATEIOTIC READER. 

during memorial which shall in some degree symbolize our con- 
ception of an event fraught with great results. 

Let it rise majestic here, girt by these grand mountains and 
overlooking the graves of the heroic dead. And so may it 
stand a mute but eloquent witness and memorial to all coming 
generations, of the battle of Bennington, and of the valor and 
virtue of the men who crowned the day, whose anniversary we 
celebrate, with glorious victory. 

John W. Stbwart. 



THE JASPER MONUMENT DEDICATED. 

(From Address delivered February 22, 1888.) 

Perhaps no comparatively obscure name has ever gathered 
about it, after the lapse of a century, so general and tender an 
interest as that of Sergeant William Jasper. There was nothing 
in Jasper's birth, education, or circumstances, as far as these are 
known, calculated to arrest the attention or impress the "imagi- 
nation. He was born in our sister State of South Carolina, of 
humble parentage, and died an unpretending soldier in the non- 
commissioned ranks of a rebel army, and died, too, in the very 
hour of disastrous defeat. Yet there stands not upon this, or 
any other continent, one monument more worthily erected than 
the granite column and bronze statue which we are here to 
unveil. 

At Fort Moultrie, on June 28, 1776, he leaped through an 
embrasure, under furious fire, and recovered, with its shattered 
staff, the fallen flag of South Carolina. In Georgia, on outpost 
duty, he released prisoners from the enemy's hands, and dis- 
tinguished himself by deeds of extraordinary daring. His life 
was a noble illustration of all the characteristics that adorn the 
soldier and the patriot. It was an exhibition of all the boasted 
virtues of the knighthood of olden times. His courage was of 
the most heroic and elevated type. Patriotism burned with a 
steadfast aud undying flame in his breast. His modesty was 
as conspicuous as his splendid and unselfish valor. He little 
thought, when with his dying breath he said, "Tell Mrs. Elliott 
that I saved the flag she gave me, though I lost my life," that 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 201 

he was placing in the hands of the historic muse, one of the 
rarest gems of chivalry that ever sparkled upon her bosom. 
Indeed, his modest worth, his lofty courage, his self-sacrifice, his 
disinterestedness, and his touching reverence for womanhood, in 
the hour of danger and of death, constitute the very essence 
and glory of chivalry. They illustrate the truth, that genuine 
greatness of soul is independent of rank, of titles, of station. 

You have raised this monument not only to Jasper, but to 
that vast army of unpretending heroes who, in all armies, have 
fought and suffered, and without the hope of distinction have 
forgotten self, braved dangers, faced death unblanched, torn 
flags from the enemy's hands, and placed their own on hostile 
breastworks, or gone down to unlettered graves, in the crash 
and carnage of war. 

But, again, this monument will become another bond of 
sympathy between Ireland and America. Let us regard it, in 
some sense, as a memorial of the heroic and pathetic struggle 
waged for self-government by Jasper's father-land, that Niobe 
of the nations, "songful, soulful; sorrowful Ireland," the echoes 
of whose woes are in the very heart of Christendom, whose 
genius and courage have enriched and ennobled every land, and 
whose irrepressible passion for liberty, growing stronger through 
centuries of oppression, is the great phenomenon of history. 

Lastly, I interpret the purpose of your monument to be the 
commemoration of those noble attributes of character which 
Jasper so beautifully illustrated in his life and death. " God 
save liberty and my country I" was his exclamation as he rescued 
the flag at Fort Moultrie. And as he closed his eyes upon his 
struggling country, he desired that his father might be assured 
that his son had died with a steadfast faith in an immortal life 
beyond the grave. 

My countrymen, the occasion which convenes us allures us 
to the contemplation of a future of greater concord and more 
perfect unity. On the heights of Bunker Hill, the gratitude of 
the North has raised an imposing memorial to the heroes who 
fell there, in defence of liberty. Here, after the lapse of a cen- 
tury, on the lowlands of Georgia, on the birthday of Washing- 
ton, we dedicate this monument to another martyr who fell in 
the cause of our country's independence. Erected on the same 



202 PATRIOTIC READER. 

continent, by the shores of the same ocean, to heroes of the same 
war, whose services and blood were a part of the price paid for 
our common freedom, these monuments should stand as effectual 
protests against sectional animosities, forever appealing, in their 
impressive silence, for a republic of concordant hearts as of equal 
States. 

John Brown Gordon. 

THE JASPER TABLET IN MADISON SQUARE, SAVANNAH. 

To the Heroic Memory of 

SERGEANT WILLIAM JASPER, 

"Who, Though Mortally Wounded, 

Rescued the Colors of his Regiment, 

In the Assault 

On the British Lines about the City, 

October 9th, 1779. 

A Century Has Not Dimmed the Glory 

Of the Irish-American Soldier 

Whose Last Tribute to Civil Liberty 

Was His Noble Life. 

1779-1879. 



THE PUTNAM MONUMENT DEDICATED. 
(From Address delivered June 14, 1888.) 

Ninety-eight years ago the wasted form of an old soldier, 
scarred by tomahawk and bullet, was laid to rest in yonder 
graveyard. His epitaph was written by the foremost scholar of 
our State* And here, to-day, above a handful of ashes, all that 
remains of that stalwart frame which in life was the inspiration 
of colonists, the hate of Frenchmen, the fear of Englishmen, 
and the awe of Indians, late, but not too late, a grateful State 
has built a seemly and enduring pedestal, has placed upon it 
his war-horse, and called again to his saddle, with his bronzed 
features saluting the morning, the Connecticut hero of the 
Eevolution. . . . 

Blessed is the State which has a history I Its present is the 
natural evolution of its past. Thermopylae was a perpetual 

* The Putnam Tablet, page 172, ante. 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 203 

legacy to the sons of Sparta ; the atmosphere of the Academy 
was an everlasting inheritance to the men of Athens. The 
children of Israel sing the songs of Miriam and David, study 
the philosophy of Moses, and Ezra, and Hillel, fight over the 
battles of Saul and the Maccabees, and rightly say, they are all 
ours. The wars are over, the wisdom is written, the lyrics are 
sung, the laws are written on papyrus, are cut in stone, are 
printed on paper, but the lesson of them all is as fresh as a 
bubbling spring. . . . 

A nation's characters may be read in its heroes. If men of 
blood and ambition are the ideals of a nation, we find a nation 
of warriors ; if patriots are the heroes, be they on the battle-field 
or in the council-chamber, we find a nation proud of its nation- 
ality. It is not military greatness that we honor to-day ; it is 
loyalty to manhood and to truth and to country. Salem had the 
honor of his birth, in 1718, and well did he repay the obligations 
of his Massachusetts nativity, by the defence and deliverance 
which he brought to her territory. He was of sturdy English 
blood, and, curiously enough, the family crest was a wolf's head. 
Like Washington and Hale, in his youth he was a conspicuous 
leader in athletic sports. When he visited the city of Boston 
for the first time, and his rural appearance excited uncompli- 
mentary comment from a city youth of twice his size, who 
chaffed him in a way to which the country boy was not accus- 
tomed, the young Israel proceeded to amuse the Boston people 
by a thorough, if not a scientific, pounding of his antagonist. 
He was first married at twenty-one years of age, and at once 
removed to Pomfret. • Here occurred the wolf's-den incident, a 
stoiy which will be told to reverent and admiring boys as a 
classic as long as boys admire pluck and bravery, which may it 
be as long as grass grows. . . . 

In the French and Indian War, beginning as a captain in 1753, 
he served until 1762. As an Indian-fighter Putnam had qualifi- 
cations which have not been excelled in the long story of our 
conflicts with the red man. His career in these earliest wars 
was as romantic as the journeys and battles of iEneas, and as 
real as martyrdom. In the forests and swamps and fields, in 
rapids and creeks, and on the lakes, by night and by day, in rec- 
onnoitre, or bush-fight, or battle-line, as scout or as a company 



204 PATRIOTIC READER. 

leader, in charge of a battalion or in single combat, he was tire- 
less in action, fertile in expedients, absolutely insensible to fear, 
and almost invariably a victor. . . . 

For the next twelve or more years he remained at home, was 
honored by civil office, and enjoyed the hearty esteem of the colo- 
nists. He had an intuition of the coming independence which 
few, even of the most radical of the fathers, dared hope for. 
When British officers reasoned with him on the folly of colonial 
resistance, and asked him " if he had any doubt that five thou- 
sand veterans could march through the continent?" " No doubt," 
said he, " if they behaved civilly and paid well for everything 
they wanted ; but," he continued, " if in a hostile manner, though 
the American men were out of the question, the women, with 
ladles and broomsticks, would knock them all on the head before 
they could get half through." 

Putnam expected to fight the mother-country and expected 
to win! The call came soon. It found him in the field. 
Leaving his oxen unloosened, and mounting his horse, he rode to 
Boston, to the fight which he saw had come, and had come to 
stay until it should be forever settled upon principles of freedom 
and right. It was but a few weeks from Lexington to Bunker 
Hill. The story of Putnam's career, from Bunker Hill until his 
paralysis in the winter of 1779-80, is deeply interesting. He 
had his share, and no more, of the ill fortunes of the campaigns, 
and he had his full share of success. . . . 

Putnam's bravery was the bravery of thoughtfulness ; his 
courage was of the kind that thinks. He was as sensitive to 
the sufferings of others as a mother. He -guarded the honor of 
woman with the chivalry of a knight. He loved war, for the 
sake of peace and freedom, and the camp, because he saw 
through and beyond its tents the peace of home. He was a 
military leader rather than a great general, and his leadership 
was marked by enthusiasm and faith, by daring, and tenacity, 
and endurance. And he was, in every fibre of his being, a true 
mailj — kind, honest, pure, conscientious, devout. He loved good- 
ness, and good men, and good things ; he hated jealousies, and 
envies, and bitterness, and injustice. The fibres of his being 
were neither by nature nor by culture delicate or refined ; but 
his heart beat and his nerves thrilled with a patriotism as 



MONUMENTAL MEMORIALS HONORED. 205 

pure and true as the on-rushing waters of Niagara. If there 
was no place in his garden for tropical flowers, there was no 
room there for poisonous grasses. If he had little conception 
of the great universe of stars and planets, he knew there was 
to be a new day, and he stood and waited for the dawn with his 
sword in hand. 

"What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed 
shaken with the wind ? 

" But what went ye out for to see ? A man clothed in soft 
raiment? behold, they that wear soft raiment are in kings' 
houses. 

" But what went ye out for to see ? A prophet ? yea, I say 
unto you, and much more than a prophet." 

Henry Cornelius Kobinson. 



THE SURRENDER OP BURGOYNE. 

(Extract from Centennial Poem, read October 17, 1877.) 

Brothers, this spot is holy! Look around! 

Before us flows our memory's sacred river, 
Whose banks are Freedom's shrines. This grassy mound, 

The altar, on whose height the Mighty Giver 
Gave Independence to our country ; when, 
Thanks to its brave, enduring, patient men, 
The invading host was brought to bay, and laid 
Beneath " Old Glory's" new-born folds, the blade, 
The brazen thunder-throats, the pomp of war. 
And England's yoke, broken for evermore. 

* * * # # * # 

Yes, on this spot, — thanks to our gracious God, — 
Where last in conscious arrogance it trod, 
Defiled, as captives, Burgoyne's conquered horde ; 
Below, their general yielded up his sword ; 
There, to our flag bowed England's, battle-torn ; 
Where now we stand, th' United States was born. 

James Watts de Peyster. 



PART VII. 

THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

If it were not for the mighty armaments which are still main- 
tained by Continental powers, it would seem that the peoples of 
all civilized countries are rapidly approaching the period when 
patriotism and humanity will honor their rightful demand, and 
bless them with genuine freedom and wholesome peace. But even 
where the draft of industrial labor from shop and field into idle 
and costly armies has almost broken up natural homes and 
repressed individual ambition, the rulers themselves have be- 
come very careful to assert that this vast diversion and waste 
of human capacity and treasure have, as inducement, the better 
safety of those homes and the assured integrity of the State. 
Dynastic changes no longer overawe the growing sentiment of 
humanity, and force nations, as once, into foolish and hurtful 
wars ; but an invisible, supreme law of moral constraint is con- 
verting selfish ambition, itself, into a means of lightening bur- 
dens and preparing the way for universal liberty. 

At a time when the number of the United States was but 
Twenty-four, and the population but twelve millions, Daniel 
Webster thus gave expression to his appreciation of 

THE PRESENT AGE. 

" We live in a most extraordinary age ! Events, so various and important 
that they might crowd and distinguish centuries, are in our times compressed 
within the compass of a single life. When has it happened that history has 
had so much to record in the same term of years as since the 17th of June, 
1775 ? Our own Revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself 
have heen expected to occasion a war of half a century, has heen achieved, 
206 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 207 

and a general government established, so safe, so free, so practical, that we 
might well wonder its establishment should have been accomplished so soon, 
were it not for the greater wonder that it should have been established at all. 
The great forests have been prostrated beneath the arm of successful industry. 
The dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi have become the 
fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the hills of New Eng- 
land. We have revenues adequate to all the exigencies of government, and 
peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect. 

" Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty revolu- 
tion, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition and happiness of 
almost every man, has shaken to the centre her political fabric, and dashed 
against one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On this, 
our continent, our example has been followed, and colonies have sprung up 
to be nations. Unaccustomed sounds of liberty and free government have 
reached us from beyond the track of the sun ; and at this moment the do- 
minion of European power in this continent, from the place we stand, to the 
South Pole, is annihilated forever. 

" In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has been the general 
progress of knowledge, such the improvements in legislation, in commerce, 
in the arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the general spirit of 
the age, that the whole world seems changed." 

It is in the swift spread of forces mightier than the sword, 
and invulnerable to its thrusts, that the youth of America are 
borne along toward a higher attainment than ever could be 
reached before to-day ; and the only retarding element, now or 
ever, is the failure to realize that " Peace on earth and good-will 
to men" is the crowning wish of the Creator, for all his children, 
everywhere. 

Edward Everett, in his " History of Liberty," declares that 

" The real history of man, rational, immortal man, is the history of struggle 
to be free ; the theme is one ; tne free of all climes and nations are themselves 
one people. Let us resolve that our children shall have cause to bless the 
memory of their fathers as we have cause to bless the memory of ours." 



208 PATRIOTIC READER. 



TRUE GLORY. 



They err, who count it glorious to subdue 

By conquest far and wide, to overrun 

Large countries, and, in field, great battles win, 

Great cities, by assault. What do these worthies 

But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave 

Peaceable nations, neighboring or remote ? 

Made captive, yet deserving freedom more 

Than those, their conquerors, who leave behind 

Nothing but ruin, wheresoe'er they rove, 

And all the flourishing works of peace destroy ; 

Then swell with pride, and must be titled gods, 

Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers, 

Worshipped with temples, priest, and sacrifice. 

But if there be in glory aught of good, 

It may, by means far different, be attained, 

Without ambition, war, or violence : 

By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent, 

By patience, temperance. 

Who names not now, with honor, patient Job ? 
Poor Socrates (who next more memorable ?) 
By what be taught, and suffered, for so doing, 
For truth's sake suffering death, unjust, lives now, 
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors. 

John Milton. 



GOD IN HISTORY. 



That God rules in the affairs of men is as certain as any truth 
of physical science. On the great moving power, which is from 
the beginning, hangs the world of the senses, and the world of 
thought and action. Eternal wisdom marshals the great pro- 
cession of the nations, working in patient continuity through 
the ages, never halting and never abrupt, encompassing all its 
events in its oversight, and ever effecting its will, though mortals 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 209 

may slumber in apathy, or oppose with madness. Kings are 
lifted up or thrown down, nations come and go, republics nourish 
and wither, dynasties pass away like a tale that is told ; but 
nothing is by chance, though men in their ignorance of causes 
may think so. The deeds of time are governed, as well as 
judged, by the decrees of eternity. The caprice of fleeting ex- 
istences bends to the immovable Omnipotent, which plants its 
foot on all the centuries, and has neither change of purpose nor 
repose. Sometimes, like a messenger through the thick dark- 
ness of night, it steps along mysterious ways, but when the hour 
strikes for a people, or for mankind, to pass into a new form of 
being, unseen hands draw the bolts from the gates of futurity ; 
an all-subduing influence prepares the minds of men for the 
coming revolution ; those who plan resistance find themselves 
in conflict with the will of Providence rather than with human 
devices ; and all hearts and all understandings, most of all the 
opinions and influences of the unwilling, are wonderfully at- 
tracted and compelled to bear forward the change, which be- 
comes more an obedience to the law of universal nature than 
submission to the arbitrament of man. 

George Bancroft. 



THE PRESENT AN AGE OP REVOLUTIONS. 

The pi*esent age may be justly described as the age of revo- 
lutions. The whole civilized world is agitated with political 
convulsions, and seems to be panting and struggling in agony 
after some unattained — perhaps unattainable — good. From the 
commencement of our Revolution up to the present day we have 
witnessed in Europe and America an uninterrupted series of 
important changes. The thrones of the Old World have been 
shaken to their foundations. On our own continent, empires 
that bore the name of colonies have shaken or are shaking off 
the shackles of dependence. 

What is the object of all these desperate struggles ? The 
object of them is to obtain an extension of individual liberty. 
Established institutions have lost their influence and authority. 
14 



210 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Men have become weary of submitting to names and forms 
which they once reverenced. It has been ascertained — to use 
the language of Napoleon — that a throne is only four boards 
covered with velvet, that a written constitution is but a sheet 
of parchment, There is, in short, an effort making throughout 
the world to reduce the action of government within the nar- 
rowest possible limits, and to give the widest possible extent to 
individual liberty. 

Our own country, though happily exempt — and God grant 
that it may long continue so ! — from the troubles of Europe, is 
not exempt from the influence of causes that produce them. 
We, too, are inspired, and agitated, and governed by the all-per- 
vading, all-inspiring, all-agitating, all-governing spirit of the age. 
What do I say ? We were the first to feel and act upon its in- 
fluence. Our Revolution was the first of the long series that has 
since shaken every corner of Europe and America. Our fathers 
led the van in the long array of heroes, martyrs, and confessors 
who had fought and fallen imder the banner of liberty. The 
institutions the}- bequeathed to us. and under which we are 
living in peace and happiness, were founded on the principles 
which lie at the bottom of the present agitation in Europe. 
We have realized what our contemporaries are laboring to 
attain. Our tranquillity is the fruit of an entire acquiescence 
in the spirit of the age. We have reduced the action of gov- 
ernment within narrower limits, and given a wider scope to 
individual liberty, than any community that ever flourished 
before. 

We live, therefore, in an age, and in a country, where positive 
laws and institutions have comparatively but little direct force. 
But human nature remains the same. The passions are as wild, 
as ardent, as ungovernable, in a republic as in a despotism. 
What, then, is to arrest their violence ? What principle is to 
take the place of the restraints thai were formerly imposed by 
time-honored customs, — venerable names and forms, — military 
and police establishments, which once maintained the peace of 
society, bul which are last losing their influence in Europe, and 
which have long since lost il in this country? 1 answer, in one 
word. Religion. Where the direct influence of Power is hardly 
felt, the indirect influence of Religion must be proportionally 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 211 

increased, or society will be converted, into a scene of wild con- 
fusion. The citizen who is released in a great measure from 
the control of positive authority, must possess within his own 
mind the strong curb of an enlightened conscience, a well- 
grounded, deeply felt, rational, and practical piety ; or else he 
will be given over, without redemption, to the sins that most 
easily beset him, and, by indulging in them, will contribute, so 
far as he has it in his power, to disturb the harmony of the 
whole body politic. 

Edward Everett. 



WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE. 
(An Ode in imitation of Alcjeus.) 

What constitutes a State ? 
Not high-raised battlements or labored mounds, 

Thick wall or moated gate ; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned ; 

Not bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Not starred and spangled courts, 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 

No : — MEN, high-minded men, 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 

In forest, brake, or den, 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 

Men, who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, 

Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : — 

These constitute a State ; 
And sovereign law, that State's collected will, 

O'er thrones and globes elate 
Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill ; 



212 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Smit by her sacred frown, 

The fiend Discretion like a vapor sinks; 

And eon the all-dazzling Crown 
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 

Such was this heaven-loved isle, 
Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore. 

No more shall Freedom smile ? 
Shall Britons languish and be MEN no more ? 

Since all must life resign, 
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave, 

'Tis folly to decline, 
And steal inglorious to the silent grave. 

Sir William Joxes. 

Aberoavxnnt, March 31, 1781. 



THE MEN TO MAKE A STATE. 

The men, to make a state, must be intelligent men. The 
right of suffrage is a fearful thing. It calls for wisdom, and dis- 
cretion, and intelligence, of no ordinary standard. It takes in, 
at even exercise, the interests of all the nation. Its results 
reach forward through time into eternity. Its discharge must 
be accounted for among the dread responsibilities of the great 
day of judgment. Who will go to it blindly? Who will go to 
it passionately? Who will go to it as a sycophant, a tool, a 
slave ? How many do ! These are not the men to make a state. 

The men, to make a state, must be honest men. I do not 
mean men that would never steal. I do not mean men that 
would scorn to cheat in making change. I mean men with a 
single face. I mean men with a single eye. I mean men with 
a Bingle tongue. 1 mean men that consider always what is right, 
and do it at whatever cost. I mean men whom no king on 
earth can buy. Men that are in the market for the highest 
bidder; men that make politics their trade, and look to office 
for a living; men that will crawl, where they cannot climb, — 
these are not the men to make a state. 

The men. to make a state, must be brave men. I mean the 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 213 

men that walk with open nice and unprotected breast. I mean 
the men that do, but do not talk. I mean the men that dare to 
stand alone. I mean the men that are to-day where they were 
yesterday, and will be there to-morrow. I mean the men that 
can stand still and take the storm. I mean the men that are 
afraid to kill, but not afraid to die. The man thai calls hard 
names and uses threats; the man that stabs, in secret, with his 
tongue or with his pen; the man that moves a mob to deeds of 
violence and self-destruction ; the man that freely offers his last 
drop of blood, but never sheds the first, — these are not the men 
to make a state. 

The men, to make a state, must be religious men. To leave 
God out of states, is to be atheists. I do not mean that men 
must cant. I do not mean that men must wear long faces. I 
do not mean that men must talk of conscience, wbile they take 
your spoons. I speak of men who have it in their heart as well 
as on their brow. The men that own no future, the men that 
trample on the Bible, the men that never pray, are not the men 
to make a state. 

The men, to make a state, are made by faith. A man that 
has no faith is so much flesh. His heart is a muscle ; nothing 
more. He has no past, for reverence; no future, for reliance. 
Such men can never make a state. There must be faith to look 
through clouds and storms up to the sun that shines as cheerily, 
on high, as on creation's morn. There must be faith that can 
afford to sink the present in the future ; and let time go, in its 
strong grasp upon eternity. This is the way that men are made, 
to make a state. 

The men, to make a state, are made by self-denial. The 
willow dallies with the water, draws its waves up in continual 
pulses of refreshment and delight ; and is a willow, after all. 
An acorn has been loosened, some autumnal morning, by a 
squirrel's foot. It finds a nest in some rude cleft of an old 
granite rock, where there is scarcely earth to cover it. It 
knows no shelter, and it feels no shade. It asks no favor, and 
gives none. It grapples with the rock. It crowds up towards 
the sun. It is an oak. It has been seventy years an oak. It 
will be an oak for seven times seventy years ; unless you need 
a man-of-war to thunder at the foe that shows a flag upon the 



214 PATRIOTIC READER. 

shore, where freomen dwell : and then you take no willow in its 
daintiness and gracefulness ; but that old, hardy, storm-staj'-ed 
and storm-strengthened oak. So are the men made that will 
make a state. 

The men, to make a state, are themselves made by obedi- 
ence. Obedience is the health of human hearts: obedience to 
God; obedience to father and to mother, who are, to children, 
in the place of God ; obedience to teachers and to masters, who 
are in the place of father and of mother; obedience to spiritual 
pastors, who are God's ministers; and to the powers that be, 
which are ordained of God. Obedience is but self-government 
in actiou ; and he can never govern men who does not govern 
first himself. Only such men can make a state. 

George Washington Doane. 



LIBERTY A SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITY. 

Liberty is a solemn thing, a welcome, a J03-OUS, a glorious 
thing, if you please, but it is a solemn thing. A free people 
must be a thoughtful people. The subjects of a despot may be 
reckless and gay, if they can. A free people must be serious; 
for it has to do the greatest thing that ever was done in the 
world, — to govern itself. 

That hour in human life is most serious when it passes from 
parental control into free manhood ; then must the man bind 
the righteous law upon himself more strongly than father or 
mother ever bound it upon him. And when a people leaves the 
leading-strings of prescriptive authority and enters upon the 
ground of freedom, that ground must be fenced with law ; it 
must be tilled with wisdom; it must be hallowed with prayer. 
The tribunal of justice, the free school, the holy church, must 
be built there, to intrench, to defend, and to keep the sacred 
heritage. 

Liberty, I repeat, is a solemn thing. The world, up to this 
time, has regarded it as a boon, not as a bond. And there is 
nothing, in the present erisis of human affairs, there is no point 
in the great human welfare, on which men's ideas so much need 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 215 

to be cleared up, — to be advanced, — to be raised to a higher 
standard, as this grand and terrible responsibility of freedom. 
In the entire universe there is no trust so awful as moral free- 
dom, and all good civil freedom depends upon the use of that. 
But look at it ! Around every human, every rational being, is 
drawn a circle. The space within is cleared from obstruction, 
or, at least, from all coercion ; it is sacred to the being himself 
who stands there; it is secured and consecrated to his own re- 
sponsibility. May I say it? God himself does not penetrate 
there with any absolute, any coercive power. lie compels the 
winds and the waves to obey him. He compels animal instincts 
to obey him ; but he does not compel men to obey. That sphere 
he leaves free. He brings influences to bear upon it ; but the 
last, final, solemn, infinite question between right and wrong 
he leaves to the man himself. 

Ah ! instead of madly delighting in his freedom, I could well 
imagine a man to protest, to complain, to tremble, that such a 
tremendous prerogative is accorded to him. But it is accorded 
to him ; and nothing but willing obedience can discharge that 
solemn trust ; nothing but a heroism greater than that which 
fights battles and pours out its blood on its country's altar, — the 
heroism of self-renunciation and self-control. 

Come that liberty ! I invoke it w T ith all the ardor of the poets 
and philosophers of freedom. With Spenser and Milton, with 
Hampden and Sidney, with Eienzi and Dante, with Hamilton 
and Washington, I invoke it ! Come that liberty ! come none 
that does not lead to that ! Come the liberty that shall strike 
off every chain, not only of iron and iron law, but of pain- 
ful construction, of fear, of enslaving passion, of mad self-wdll ; 
the liberty of perfect truth and love, of holy faith and glad 

obedience. 

Orville Dewey. 



TRUE LIBERTY HONORS AUTHORITY. 

I suppose something may be expected from me upon this 
charge that is befallen me : yet I intend not to intermeddle in 
the proceedings of the court, or with any of the persons con- 



216 PATRIOTIC READER. 

cerned therein. Only I bless God that I see an issue of this 
troublesome business. I was publicly charged, and I am publicly 
and legally acquitted, which is all I did expect or desire. And 
though this be sufficient for my justification before men, yet not 
so before God, who hath seen so much amiss in my dispensa- 
tions as calls me to be humble. Give me leave, upon this special 
occasion, to speak a little more to this assembly. It may be of 
some good use, to inform and rectify the judgments of some of 
the people. 

The great questions that have troubled the country are about 
the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people. 
It is yourselves who have called us to tbis office, and being 
called by you, we have our authority from God, in way of an 
ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently stamped 
upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vindicated 
with examples of divine vengeance. I entreat you to consider, 
that when you choose magistrates you take them from among 
yourselves, men, subject to like passions, as you are. Therefore 
when you see infirmities in us, you should reflect upon your 
own, and that would make you bear the more with us, and not 
be severe censurers of the failings of your magistrate, when you 
have continual experience of the like infirmities in yourselves, 
and others. We account him a good servant who breaks not 
his covenant. The covenant between you and us is the oath 
you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we shall 
govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God's laws, 
and our own, according to our best skill. 

For the other point, concerning liberty, I observe a great mis- 
take in the country about that. There is a twofold liberty, 
natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil, or fed- 
eral. The first is common to man, with beasts, and other creat- 
ures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man, simply, 
hath liberty to do what he lists. It is a liberty to evil as well 
as to good. This liberty is incompatible and inconsistent with 
authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just 
authority. The exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes 
men grow more evil, and, in time, to be worse than brute 
beasts ; — omnes sumus licentia deteriores. 

This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 217 

which all the ordinances of God are bent against, to restrain and 
subdue it. 

The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal. It may also 
be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and 
man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitu- 
tions among men themselves. This liberty is the proper end 
and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it ; and it is 
a liberty to that only which is good, just, and honest. This 
liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard not only of your 
goods but of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this 
is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is the 
proper end maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to 
authority. It is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ 
hath made us free. On the other side, ye know who they are 
that oomplain of this yoke, and say, " Let us break their bands 
asunder ; we will not have this man to rule over us." Even so, 
brethren, it will be between you and your magistrates. If you 
stand for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is 
good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of 
authority, but will murmur and oppose, and be always " striving 
to shake off that yoke;" but if you will be satisfied to enjoy such 
civil and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will 
you quietly and cheerfully submit unto that authority which is 
set over you, in all the administrations of it, for your good. 

Wherein if we fail at any time, we hope we shall be willing, 
by God's assistance, to hearken to good advice from any of you, 
or in any other way of God ; so shall your liberties be preserved 
in upholding the honor and power of authority among you. 

John Winthrop. (1645.) 

Note.— John Winthrop, deputy-governor of Massachusetts, under John Endicott, in 
1641, was re-choseu, when Thomas Dudley became governor, in 1645. A local contest in 
the town of Hingham as to choice of captain and lieutenant made a wonderful stir in the 
colony as to the rightful action of the deputy in adjusting the controversy. When com- 
plaint was made, the deputy, waiving his position, appeared before the General Court, 
which had approved his action, and in the spirit of the conscientious man he was, took 
occasion to make what he called " his little speech." The historian Grahame says, " In 
the wisdom, piety, and dignity that it breathes it resembles the magnanimous vindica- 
tion of a judge of Israel." Tocqueville quotes from it as "a fine definition of lib- 
erty." In the " Modern Universal History" it is compared to " the best of antiquity, 
whether as coming from a philosopher or a magistrate." Mr. Winthrop was chosen 
governor every year after as long as he lived. 



218 PATRIOTIC READER. 



TRUE LIBERTY MEASURED BY INTELLIGENCE. 

Society can no more exist without government, in one form 
or another, than man without society. It is the political, then, 
which includes the social, that is his natural state. It is the one 
for which his Creator formed him, into which he is impelled 
irresistibly, and in which only his race can exist, and all his fac- 
ulties be fully developed. Such being the case, it follows that 
any, the worst form of government, is better than anarchy ; and 
that individual libert}', or freedom, must be subordinate to what- 
ever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy 
within, or destruction from without ; for the safety and well- 
being of societjr are as paramount to individual liberty as the 
safety and well-being of the race are to that of individuals ; and, 
in the same proportion, the power necessary for the safety of 
society is paramount to individual liberty. On the contrary, 
government has no right to control individual liberty beyond 
what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such 
is the boundary which separates the power of government and 
the liberty of the citizen, or subject, in the political state, which, 
as I have shown, is the natural state of man, the only one in 
which his race can exist, and the one in which he is born, lives, 
and dies. 

It follows from all this that the quantum of power on the 
part of the government, and of liberty on that of individuals, 
instead of being equal in all cases, must, necessarily, be very 
unequal among different people, according to their different con- 
ditions. For, just in proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, 
debased, corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger without, 
the power necessary for government to possess, in order to pre- 
serve society against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater 
and greater, and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest 
condition is reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes 
necessary on the part of the government and individual liberty 
extinct. So, on the contrary, just as a people rise in the scale 
of intelligence, virtue, and patriotism, and the more perfectly 
they become acquainted with the nature of government, the 
ends for which it was ordered, and how it ought to be adminis- 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 219 

tered, and the less the tendency to violence and disorder within 
and danger from abroad, the power necessary for government 
becomes less and less, and individual liberty greater and greater. 
Instead, then, of all men having the same right to liberty and 
equality, as is claimed by those who hold that they are all born 
free and equal, liberty is the noble and highest reward bestowed 
on mental and moral development, combined with favorable cir- 
cumstances. Instead, then, of liberty and equality being born 
with man, instead of all men, and all classes and descriptions, 
being equally entitled to them, they are high prizes to be won, 
and are, in their most perfect state, not only the highest re- 
ward that can be bestowed on our race, but the most difficult 
to be won, and, when won, the most difficult to be preserved. 

John Caldwell Calhoun. 



DESPOTISM AND DEMOCRACY INCOMPATIBLE. 

No man can lawfully govern himself according to his own 
will ; much less can one person be governed by the will of an- 
other. We are all born in subjection, — all born equally, high 
and low, governors and governed, in subjection to one great, 
immutable, pre-existent law, prior to all our devices, and prior 
to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas and to all our 
sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we are 
knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of 
which we cannot stir. 

This great law does not arise from our conventions or com- 
pacts ; on the contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts 
all the force and sanction they can have ; — it does not arise from 
our vain institutions. Every good gift is of God : all power is 
of God ; — and he who has given the power, and from whom 
alone it originates, will never suffer the exercise of it to be 
practised upon any less solid foundation than the power itself. 
If, then, all dominion of man over man is the effect of the divine 
disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of him that gave it, 
with which no human authority can dispense ; neither he that 



220 PATRIOTIC READER. 

exercises it, nor even those who are subject to it ; and, if they 
were mad enough to make an express compact, that should re- 
lease their magistrate from his duty, and should declare their 
lives, liberties, and properties dependent upon, not rules and 
laws, but his mere capricious will, that covenant Avould be void. 
Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a 
magistrate, and I Avill name property ; name me power, and I 
will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms, it is blas- 
phemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any 
man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the 
duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist ? To 
suppose, for power, is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided 
and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all 
subject. We may bite our chains, if we will ; but we shall be 
made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be 
governed by law ; and he that will substitute will in the place 
of it is an enenry to God. Edmund Burke. 



SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY INCOMPATIBLE. 

Democracy ! — Socialism ! Why profess to associate what, in 
the nature of things, can never be united? Can it be, gen- 
tlemen, that this whole grand movement of the French Revo- 
lution is destined to terminate in that form of society which 
the socialists have, with so much fervor, depicted ? — a society 
marked out with compass and rule, in which the state is to 
charge itself with everything and the individual is to be noth- 
ing ; in which society is to absorb all force, all life ; and in which 
the only end assigned to man is his personal comfort ? What ! 
was it for such a society of beavers and of bees, a society rather 
of skilful animals than of men free and civilized, — was it for 
such that the French Revolution was accomplished ? Not so ! 
It was for a greater, a more sacred end ; one more worthy of 
humanity. 

But socialism professes to be the legitimate development of 
democracy. I shall not search, as many have done, into the 
true etymology of this word democracy. I shall not, as gentle- 
men did yesterday, traverse the garden of Greek roots to find 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 221 

the derivation of this word. I shall point you to democracy 
where I have seen it, living, active, triumphant; in the only 
country in the world where it truly exists, where it has been 
able to establish and maintain, even to the present time, some- 
thing grand and durable to claim our admiration, — in the New 
World, — in America. There shall you see a people among whom 
all conditions of men are more on an equality even than among 
us ; where the social state, the manners, the laws, everything is 
democratic ; where all emanates from the people and returns to 
the people ; and where, at the same time, every individual enjoys 
a greater amount of liberty, a more entire independence, than 
in any other part of the world at any period of time ; a country, I 
repeat it, essentially democratic ; the only democracy in the wide 
world at this day ; and the only republic, truly democratic, which 
we know of in history. And in this republic you will look in 
vain for socialism. Not only have the theories of the socialists 
gained no possession there, of the public mind, but they have 
played so trifling a part in the discussions and affairs of that 
great nation, that they have not even reached the dignity of 
being feared. 

America is at this day that country, of the whole world, 
where the sovereignty of democracy is most practical and com- 
plete ; and it is at the same time that, where the doctrines of 
the socialists, which you pretend to find so much in accordance 
with democracy, are the least in vogue; the country, of the 
whole universe, where the men sustaining those doctrines would 
have the least chance of making an impression. For myself 
personally, I do not see, I confess, any great objection to the 
emigration of these proselyting gentlemen to America; but I 
warn them that they will not find there any field for their labors. 

No, gentlemen, democracy and socialism are the antipodes of 
each other. While democracy extends the sphere of individual 
independence, socialism contracts it. Democracy develops a 
man's whole manhood ; socialism makes him an agent, an in- 
strument, a cipher. Democracy and socialism assimilate on one 
point only, — the equality which they introduce ; but mark the 
difference : democracy seeks equality in liberty, while socialism 
seeks it in servitude and constraint. 

Alexis Charles de Tooqtjeville. 



222 PATRIOTIC READER. 



CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY HARMONIZE. 

Here, then, behold the creed of Freedom and its great high- 
priest. Ought not he who would be a true disciple of the demo- 
cratic faith to worship also at the altar of Christianity ? Behold 
its essential fundamental law and spirit, — "None of us liveth 
to himself." Animated by such a principle, derived from the 
great fountain of all holy impulse, let us go forth to bear the 
ark of Freedom through the world. Be it ours not merely to 
abolish the disheartening barriers of social caste, to dismiss the 
hireling soldier, to spike the cannon, to strike the come from the 
slave, but to disenthrall the mind from ignorance and vice, and 
raise the free soul's longing to the skies ! 

In this glorious enterprise are harmonized our religious and 
our civic duties. It allies us to all the glorious family of the 
truly free in earth and Heaven. Lo! they wait for us, they 
watch for us, — that mighty cloud, of witnesses! They crowd 
the circumambient sky ! O ! glorious brotherhood of liberty ! 
They bend from their starry thrones ! They beckon us ! Ay, 
and God is with us. He will set his King upon his holy hill 
of Zion. 

To this do all the revolutions of the nations tend. "Thus 
saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the 
crown : exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I 
will overturn, overturn, overturn, it : . . . until he come whose 
right it is, and I will give it him." He unrolls the blazing 
scroll of prophecy, and this is its golden inscription : 

" For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, 
and for wood brass, and for stones iron : I will also make thy 
officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. 

" Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor 
destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls 
Salvation, and thy gates Praise. 

" Thy people also shall be all righteous : they shall inherit the 
land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, 
that I may be glorified. 

"A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a 
strong nation : I the Lord will hasten it in his time." 

Happy association ! Christ and the Genius of Liberty, pa- 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PEESENT AGE. 223 

triotism and evangelic zeal, the cause of country and the cause 
of universal man. The cause is heaven-born; the blessed in- 
fluences of the universe are pledged to its success. 

KOBERT KaIKKS EaYMOND. 



CHRISTIAN CITIZENSHIP. 

Ephesus was upside down. The manufacturers of silver boxes 
for holding heathen images had collected their laborers together 
to discuss the behavior of one Paul, who had been in public 
places assaulting image-worship, and consequently very much 
damaging their business. There was a great excitement in the 
city. People stood in knots along the street, violently gesticu- 
lating and calling one another hard names. Some of the people 
favored the policy of the silversmiths ; others the policy of Paul. 

Finally they called a convention. When they assembled they 
all wanted the floor, and all wanted to talk at once. Some 
wanted to denounce, some to resolve. At last the convention 
rose in a body, all shouting together, till some were red in the 
face and sore in the throat, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! 
Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" 

Well, the whole scene reminds me of the excitement we wit- 
ness at the autumnal elections. While the goddess Diana has 
lost her worshippers, our American people want to set up a god 
in place of it, and call it political party. While there are true 
men, Christian men, standing in both political parties, who go 
into the elections resolved to serve their city, their State, their 
country, in the best possible way, yet in the vast majority it is 
a question between the peas and the oats. One party cries, 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" and the other party cries, 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians !" when in truth both are 
crying, if they were but honest enough to admit it, " Great is 
my pocket-book !" 

What is the duty of Christian citizenship ? If the Norwegian 
boasts of his home of rocks, and the Siberian is happy in his 
land of perpetual snow ; if the Eoman thought the muddy Tiber 
was the favored river of heaven, and the Chinese pities every- 



224 PATRIOTIC READER. 

body born outof the Flowery Kingdom, shall not we, in this land 
of glorious liberty, have some thought and love for country? 
There is a power higher than t he ballot-box, the gubernatorial 
chair, or the President's house. To preserve the institutions of 
our country, we must recognize this power in our politics. 

See how men make every effort to clamber into higher posi- 
tions, but are cast down. God opposes them. Every man, every 
nation, that proved false to divine expectation, down it went. 
God said to the house of Bourbon, " Eemodel France and estab- 
lish equity." It would not do it. Down it went. God said to 
the house of Stuart, "Make the people of England happy." It 
would not do it. Down it went. He said to the house of Haps- 
burg, "Eeform Austria and set the prisoners free." It would 
not do it. Down it went. He says to men now, " Eeform abuses, 
enlighten the people, make peace and justice to reign." They 
don't do it, and they tumble down. 

How many wise men will go to the polls high with hope and 
be sent back to their firesides ! God can spare them. If he could 
spare Washington, before free government was tested; Howard, 
while tens of thousands of dungeons remained un visited; Wil- 
berforce, before the chains had dropped from millions of slaves, 
then Heaven can spare another man. The man who, for party, 
forsakes righteousness, goes down, and the armed battalions of 
God march over him. 

Wkndell Phillips. 



THE INHUMANITY OP SLAVERY. 

On for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 

Some boundless contiguity of shade, 

Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 

Of unsuccessful or successful war, 

Might never reach me more! My ear is pained, 

My soul is sick with every day's report 

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled. 

There is no flesh in man's obdurate hearl ; 

It does not feel for man. The natural bond 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 225 

Of brotherhood is severed, as the flax 
That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 
Not colored like his own ; and, having power 
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. 
Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
Make enemies of nations, who had else, 
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. 

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored, 
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 
Chains him and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 

Then what is man I And what man seeing this, 
And having human feelings, does not blush 
And hang his head, to think himself a man ? 
I would not have a slave to till my ground, 
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned ! 

No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
Just estimation prized above all price, 
I had much rather be myself the slave, 
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
We have no slaves at home, — then why, abroad ? 
And they, themselves, once ferried o'er the wave 
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. 

Slaves cannot breathe in England : if their lungs 
Eeceive her air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, 
And let it circulate through eveiy vein 
Of all your empire : that where Britain's power 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too. 

William Cowpeb. 
15 



226 PATRIOTIC READER. 



LIBERTY AND SLAVERY CONTRASTED. 

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery ! still thou art a 
bitter draught ; and though thousands in all ages have been made 
to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is 
thou, Liberty ! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all, in 
public or in private, worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever 
will be so, till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can 
spot thy snowy mantle, or turn thy sceptre into iron. With thee 
to smile upon him, who eats his crust, the swain is happier than 
his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious heaven ! 
grant me but health, thou great bestower of it, and give me but 
this fair goddess for my companion ; and shower down thy 
mitres, if it seem good unto the divine Providence, upon those 
heads which are aching for them ! 

Pursuing this idea, I sat down close by my table, and, leaning 
my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries 
of confinement. I was in a right frame of it, and so I gave full 
scope to my imagination. 

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures 
born to no inheritance but slavery ; but, finding, however affect- 
ing the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and 
that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I 
took a single captive, and having first shut him up*in a dungeon, 
I then looked through the twilight of his grated door, to take 
his picture. 

I beheld his body half Avasted away with long expectation 
and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it 
was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I 
saw him pale and feverish ; in thirty years the western breeze 
had not once fanned his blood ; — he had seen no sun, no moon, in 
all that time ; nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed 

through his lattice. His children But here my heart began 

to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the 
portrait. 

He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw, in the 
farthest part of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair 
and bed ; a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, 



THE DEMANDS OP THE PEESENT AGE. 227 

notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had spent 
there ; — he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a 
rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the 
heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hope- 
less eye towards the door, then cast it down, shook his head, and 
went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon 
his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the 
bundle. He gave a deep sigh, — I saw the iron enter his soul. I 
burst into tears, — I could not sustain the picture of confinement 
which my fancy had drawn. 

Laurence Sterne. 



DELAYED LIBERTY IS BUT MOCKERY. 

Upon the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne of France 
many prisoners were set free from the thick and cold stone 
walls of the Bastile. An old man, whose locks, white, thin, and 
scattered, had almost acquired the rigidity of iron, had groaned 
in confinement for forty-seven years. One day the narrow door 
of his tomb turned upon its grating hinges and opened, — not, 
as usual, by halves, but wide, — and an unknown voice bade him 
depart, — at liberty. As in a dream, he hesitated. At length he 
rose, walked forth with trembling steps, amazed at the space he 
traversed. Stairs, halls, court, seemed immense ! He stopped, 
like a bewildered traveller, and gazed around. His vision with 
difficulty took in the light of day. Stupefied with newly-ac- 
quired power, limbs and tongue alike refused, in spite of effort, 
to do their office. 

Once through the formidable gate, as he felt the motion of 
the carriage which had been ordered to take him to his home, 
he screamed, unable to bear the new motion, and was obliged 
to descend. Supported by a benevolent arm, he sought the old 
street ; but no trace of his old home remained. A public edifice 
occupied its site. The houses of neighbors, fresh in memory, 
had all changed. Terrified, he stopped, and fetched a long sigh. 
What if the city was peopled with living creatures? None 
were alive to him ! He was unknown to the world, — he knew 



228 PATRIOTIC READEK. 

nobody ; he wept, — he regretted his dungeon. At the word 
" Bastile," which he repeated, as his asylum, his only home, the 
crowd gathered in curiosity and pity ; but none remembered the 
incidents of his sad story. 

At length a superannuated domestic, who did not remember 
his old master, remembered how the wife had gone to the grave 
thirty 3^ears before, how the children had gone abroad to dis- 
tant climes, and that no relation or friend remained. The miser- 
able man groaned, and groaned, alone. Bowing down before the 
minister who gave him his liberty, he could only say, " Bestore 
me to the prison from whicb you have taken me. I cannot sur- 
vive the loss of relations, friends, and, in one word, of a whole 
generation. While secluded I lived with myself, but here I can 
neither live with myself nor witb a new race, to whom my an- 
guish and despair appear only as a dream." 

The minister was melted ! He caused the old domestic to 
wait upon him ; but the chagrin and mortification of meeting no 
person who could say to him, "We were formerly known to 
each other." soon put an end to his existence. 

Arranged from Louis Sebastien Mercier. 



POPULAR GOVERNMENT THE MOST JUST. 

The real glory and prosperity of a nation does not consist in 
the hereditary rank or titled privileges of a very small class in 
the community ; in the great wealth of the few and the great 
poverty of the many ; in the splendid palaces of nobles and 
the wretched huts of a numerous and half-famished peasantry. 
No ! such a state of things may give pleasure to proud, ambi- 
tious, and selfish minds, but there is nothing here on which the 
eye of a patriot can rest with unmingled satisfaction. In his 
deliberate judgment, — 

" 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay ; 
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade : 
A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 229 

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
"When once destroyed can never be supplied." 

It is an intelligent, virtuous, free, and extensive population, able, 
by their talents and industry, to obtain a competent support, 
which constitutes the strength and prosperity of a nation. 

It is not the least advantage of a popular government that it 
brings into operation a greater amount of talent than any other. 
It is acknowledged by every one that the occurrence of great 
events awakens the dormant energies of the human mind and 
calls forth the most splendid and powerful abilities. It was the 
momentous question, whether your country should be free and 
independent, and the declaration that it was so, which gave to 
you orators, statesmen, and generals, whose names all future 
ages will delight to honor. 

The characters of men are generally moulded by the circum- 
stances in which they are placed. They seldom put forth their 
strength without some powerfully exciting motives. But what 
motives can they have to qualify themselves for stations from 
which they are forever excluded on account of plebeian extrac- 
tion ? How can they be expected to prepare themselves for the 
service of their country, when they know that their services 
would be rejected, because, unfortunately, they dissent from the 
established religion and have honesty to avow it ! 

But in a country like ours, where the most obscure individuals 
in society may, by their talents, virtues, and public services, rise 
to the most honorable distinctions and attain to the greatest 
offices which the people can give, the most effectual inducements 
are presented. It is indeed true that only a few who run in 
the race for political honor can obtain the prize. But, although 
many come short, yet the exertions and the progress which 
they make are not lost, either on themselves or society. The 
suitableness of their talents and characters for some other impor- 
tant station may have been perceived ; at least the cultivation 
of their minds, and the effort to acquire an honorable reputation, 
may render them active and useful members of the community. 
These are some of the benefits peculiar to a popular government ; 
benefits which we have long enjoyed. 

Daniel Sharp. 



230 PATRIOTIC READER. 



NATIONAL DISTINCTION DEPENDS UPON VIRTUE. 

The great distinction of a nation, the only one worth possess- 
ing, and which brings after it all other blessings, is the preva- 
lence of pure principle among the citizens. I wish to belong to 
a state in the character and institutions of which I may find a 
spring of improvement, which I can speak of with an honest 
pride ; in whose records I may meet great and honored names, 
and which is fast making the world its debtor by its discoveries 
of truth, and by an example of virtuous freedom. Oh, save me 
from a country which worships wealth and cares not for true 
glory ; in which intrigue bears rule ; in which patriotism bor- 
rows its zeal from the prospect of office ; in which hungry syco- 
phants throng with supplication all the departments of state ; 
in which public men bear the brand of private vice, and the seat 
of government is a noisome sink of private licentiousness and 
public corruption! 

Tell me not of the honor of belonging to a free country. I 
ask, Does our liberty bear generous fruits ? Does it exalt us in 
manly spirit, in public virtue, above countries trodden under- 
foot by despotism ? Tell me not of the extent of our country. 
I care not how large it is, if it multiply degenerate men. Speak 
not of our prosperity. Better be one of a poor people, plain 
in manners, reverencing God, and respecting ourselves, than 
belong to a rich country which knows no higher good than 
riches. Earnestly do I desire for this country that, instead of 
copying Europe with an undiscerning servility, it may have a 
character of its own, corresponding to the freedom and equality 
of our institutions. One Europe is enough. One Paris is enough. 
How much to be desired is it that, separated, as we are, from 
the Eastern continent by an ocean, we should be still more 
widely separated by simplicity of manners, by domestic purity, 
by inward piety, by reverence for human nature, by moral inde- 
pendence, by withstanding the subjection to fashion and that 
debilitating sensuality which characterize the most civilized 
portions of the Old World ! Of this country I may say, with 
peculiar emphasis, that its happiness is bound up in its virtue ! 

William Ellery Channing. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 231 



MORAL POWER THE MIGHTIEST. 

If there be any one line of policy in which all political parties 
agree, it is that we should keep aloof from the agitations of 
other governments ; that we shall not intermingle our national 
concerns with theirs ; and much more, that our citizens shall 
abstain from acts which lead the subjects of other governments 
to violence and bloodshed. These violators of the law show 
themselves to be enemies of their country, by trampling under- 
foot its laws, compromising its honor, and involving it in the 
most serious embarrassment with a foreign and friendly nation. 
It is, indeed, lamentable to reflect that such men, under such 
circumstances, may hazard the peace of the country. If they 
were to come out in array against their own government, the 
consequence to it would be far less serious. In such an effort 
they could not involve it in much bloodshed, or in a heavy ex- 
penditure, nor would its commerce and general business be ma- 
terially injured. But a war with a powerful nation, with whom 
we have the most extensive relations, commercial and social, 
would bring down upon our country the heaviest calamity. It 
would dry up the sources of its prosperity and deluge it in blood. 

The great principle of our republican institutions cannot be 
propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, 
and not physical. If we desire the political regeneration of 
oppressed nations, we must show them the simplicity, the gran- 
deur, and the freedom of our own government. We must 
recommend it to the intelligence and virtue of other nations by 
its elevated and enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and 
the protection it affords to all its citizens, and the liberty they 
enjoy. And if, in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high 
bequests of our fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall 
do more to liberate other governments and emancipate their 
subjects than could be accomplished by" millions of bayonets. 
This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. It 
addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgments of men. No 
physical force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are un- 
seen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons 
most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of kings and 



232 PATRIOTIC READER. 

emperors. We should cherish this power as essential to the pres- 
ervation of our own government, and as the most efficient means 
of ameliorating the condition of our race. And this can only be 
done by a reverence for the laws, and by the exercise of an ele- 
vated patriotism. But if we trample under our feet the laws 
of our country, if we disregard the faith of treaties, and our 
citizens engage without restraint in military enterprises against 
the peace of other governments, we shall be considered and 
treated, and justly, too, as a nation of pirates. 

John McLean. 



MORAL REFORM THE HOPE OP THE AGE. 

The crisis has come. Ity the people of this generation, by 
ourselves probably, the amazing question is to be decided, 
whether the inheritance of our fathers shall be preserved or 
thrown away ; whether our Sabbaths shall be a delight or a loath- 
ing ; whether the taverns, on that holy day, shall be crowded 
with drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble worship- 
pers ; whether riot and profaneness shall till our streets, and 
poverty our dwellings, and convicts our jails, and violence our 
land, or whether industry, and temperance, and righteousness 
shall be the stability of our times ; whether mild laws shall re- 
ceive the cheerful submission of freemen, or the iron rod of a 
tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves. Be not deceived. 
Human nature in this state is like human nature everywhere. All 
actual difference in our favor is adventitious, and the result of 
our laws, institutions, and habits. It is a moral influence which, 
with the blessing of God, has formed a state of society so 
eminently desirable. The same influence which has formed it 
is indispensable to its preservation. The rocks and hills of New 
England will remain till the last conflagration. But let the 
Sabbath be profaned with impunity, the worship of God aban- 
doned, the government and religious instruction of children 
neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to 
flow, and her glory will depart. The wall of fire will no more 
surround her, and the munition of rocks will no longer be her 
defence. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 233 

If we neglect our duty, and suffer our laws and institutions 
to go down, we give them up forever. It is easy to relax, easy 
to retreat, but impossible, when the abomination of desolation 
has once passed over New England, to rear again the thrown- 
down altars, and gather again the fragments, and build up the 
ruins of demolished institutions. Another ISTew England nor 
we nor our children shall ever see, if this be destroyed. All is 
lost irretrievably when the landmarks are once removed and 
the bands which now hold us are once broken. Such institu- 
tions, and such a state of society, can be established only by 
such men as our fathers were, and in such circumstances as they 
were in. They could not have made a New England in Holland. 
They made the attempt, but failed. 

The hand that overturns our laws and altars, is the hand of 
death unbarring the gate of Pandemonium and letting loose 
upon our land the crimes and the miseries of hell. If the Most 
High should stand aloof, and cast not a single ingredient into 
our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative 
woe. But He will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an 
open controversy with Him, He will contend openly with us. 
And never, since the earth stood, has it been so fearful a thing 
for nations to fall into the hands of the living God. The day 
of vengeance is in His heart, the day of judgment has come ; 
the great earthquake which sinks Babylon is shaking the na- 
tions, and the waves of the mighty commotion are dashing upon 
every shore. Is this, then, a time to remove foundations, when 
the earth itself is shaken ? Is this a time to forfeit the protec- 
tion of G-od, when the hearts of men are failing them for fear, 
and for looking after those things which are coming on the 
earth ? Is this a time to run upon His neck and the thick bosses 
of His buckler, when the nations are drinking blood, and faint- 
ing, and passing away in His wrath? Is this a time to throw 
away the shield of faith, when His arrows are drunk with the 
blood of the slain ? To cut from the anchor of hope, when the 
clouds are collecting, and the sea and the waves are roaring, and 
thunders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in the 
heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, 
and every mountain, sea, and island is fleeing in dismay from 
the face of an incensed God ? Lyman Heecher. 



234 PATRIOTIC READER. 



TEMPERANCE REFORM MOST IMPERATIVE. 

(From Address delivered at Salem, Massachusetts, June 14, 1833, upon 
the following resolution, introduced hy the speaker, and having perpetual 
force as the most imperative demand of the present age : 

" Resolved, That while we behold with the highest satisfaction the success 
of the efforts which have been made for the suppression of intemperance, we 
consider its continued prevalence as affording the strongest motives for per- 
severing and increased exertion.") 

EXTKACTS ARRANGED FROM ADDRESS. 

The maxims of temperance are not new ; they are as old as 
Christianity, as old as any of the inculcations of personal and 
social duty. The vice of intemperance, through the social 
circle, the stated club, the long-protracted sitting at the board 
on public occasions, and the midnight festivities of private 
assemblies, is social in its origin, progress, and aggravation, and 
authorizes us, by every rule of reason and justice, in exerting the 
whole strength of the social principle in the way of remedy. 
The law had done something, the press had done something, but 
all had done but little, and intemperance had reached a most 
alarming degree of prevalence. At length societies were formed, 
addresses made, information collected, pledges mutually given, 
hearts warmed by comparison of opinion, until the aspect of 
many entire communities has been changed, and an incalculable 
amount of vice and woe has been prevented. But when we con- 
template intemperance in all its bearings and effects on the con- 
dition and character of men, we shall come to the conclusion 
that it is the greatest evil which, as beings of a compound 
nature, we have to fear, because striking directly at the ulti- 
mate principle of the constitution of the man. 

Our life exists in a mysterious union of the corporeal and 
intellectual principles ; an alliance of singular intimacy as well 
as of strange contrast between the two extremes of being. In 
their due relation to each other, and in the rightful discharge of 
their respective functions, I do not know whether the ethereal 
essence itself (at least as far as we can comprehend it, which is 
but faintly) ought more to excite our admiration than this most 
wondrous compound of spirit and matter. When I contrast the 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 235 

dull and senseless clod of the valley in its unanimated state, 
with the curious hand, the glowing cheek, the beaming eye, the 
discriminating sense which dwells in a thousand nerves, I feel 
the force of that inspired exclamation, " I am fearfully and won- 
derfully made !" When I consider the action and reaction of 
soul" and body on each other, the impulse given to volition from 
the senses, and again to the organs by the will ; when I reflect 
how thoughts, so exalted that, though they comprehend all else } 
the laws of their own existence are incomprehensible, are yet 
able to take a shape in the material air, to issue and travel from 
one sense in one man to another sense in another man, so that, 
as the words drop from my lips, the secret chambers of the soul 
are thrown open and its invisible ideas made manifest, I am 
lost in wonder ! If I add to this the reflection, how the world 
and its affairs are governed, the face of nature changed, oceans 
crossed, continents settled, families gathered and kept together 
for generations, and monuments of power, wisdom, and taste 
erected, which last for ages after the hands that reared them 
have turned to dust, and all this by the regency of that fine 
intellectual principle which sits modestly concealed behind its 
veil of clay and moves its subject organs, I find no words to ex- 
press my admiration Of the union of mind and matter by which 
these miracles are wrought. The vice of intemperance, which 
aims directly to destroy this organization, is the arch-abomina- 
tion of our natures, assuring the triumph of the low, base, sen- 
sual, and earthly, over the heavenly and pure ; converting this 
curiously-organized frame into a crazy, disordered machine, and 
dragging down the soul to the slavery of grovelling lusts ! 

Such and so formidable is its power ! Public opinion in all its 
strength is enlisted against it. Men that agree in nothing else 
unite in this. Eeligious divisions are healed and party feuds 
forgotten in this good cause. Individuals and societies, private 
citizens and the government, have joined in waging war against 
intemperance; and above all, the press, the great engine of 
reform, is thundering with all its artillery against it. 

It is a moment of great interest, and also of considerable deli- 
cacy. That period in a moral reform in which a great evil, that 
has long passed comparatively unquestioned, is overtaken by 
a sudden bound of public opinion, is somewhat critical. Indi- 



236 PATRIOTIC READER. 

viduals, as honest as their neighbors, are surprised in pursuits 
and practices, sanctioned by the former standard of moral senti- 
ment, but below the mark of reform. Tenderness and delicacy- 
are unnecessary to prevent such persons, by mistaken pride of 
character, from becoming enemies of the cause. In our denun- 
ciations of the evil we must take care not to include those w'hom 
a little prudence might bring into cordial co-operation with us 
in its suppression. Let us mingle discretion with our zeal, and 
the greater will be our success in this pure and noble enterprise. 

Edward Everett. 



THE REFORMER'S TRIALS. 

The Fate of the Reformer, 1830. 

I have heard it said that, when one lifts up his voice against 
things that are, and wishes for a change, he is raising a clamor 
against existing institutions, a clamor against our venerable es- 
tablishments, a clamor against the law of the land ; but, " Where 

THERE IS ABUSE THERE OUGHT TO BE CLAMOR; BECAUSE IT IS 
BETTER TO HAVE OUR SLUMBER BROKEN BY THE PIRE-BELL THAN 
TO PERISH, AMIDST THE FLAMES, IN OUR BED." I have been told, 

by some who have little objection to the clamor, that I am a 
timid and a mock reformer ; and by others, if I go on firmly and 
steadily, and do not allow myself to be driven aside by either 
one outcry or another, and care for neither, that it is a rash and 
dangerous innovation which I propound ; and that I am taking, 
for the subject of my reckless experiments, things which are the 
objects of all men's veneration. I disregard the one as much as 
I disregard the other of these charges. 

" False honor charms, and lying slander scares, 
Whom, but the false and faulty?" 

It has been the lot of all men, in all ages, who have aspired 
at the honor of guiding, instructing, or mending mankind, to 
have their paths beset by every persecution from adversaries, 
by every misconstruction from friends ; no quarter from the one, 
— no charitable construction from the other! To be miscon- 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 237 

strued, misrepresented, borne down, till it was in vain to bear 
down any longer, has been their fate. But truth will survive, 
and calumny has its day. I say that, if this be the fate of the 
reformer, — if he be the object of misrepresentation, — may not 
an inference be drawn favorable to myself? Taunted by the 
enemies of reform as being too rash, by the over-zealous friends 
of reform as being too slow or too cold, there is every reason 
for presuming that I have chosen the right course. A reformer 
must proceed steadily in his career ; not misled, on the one hand, 
by panegyric, nor discouraged by slander, on the other. He 
wants no praise. I would rather say, "Woe to him when all 
men speak well of him !" I shall go on in the course which I 
have laid down for myself; pursuing the footsteps of those who 
have gone before us, who have left us their instructions and suc- 
cess, — their instructions to guide our walk, and their success to 
cheer our spirits. 

Henry (Lord) Brougham. (1833.) 



TRUE PATRIOTISM IS UNSELFISH. 

Eight and wrong, justice and crime, exist independently of 
our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any 
citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and do the right, 
and the nation is but an aggregation of citizens. If a man 
should shout, " My country, by whatever means extended and 
bounded ; my country, right or wrong !" he merely repeats the 
words of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who 
swears falsely at the custom-house, both of them chuckling, " My 
fortune ; however acquired." 

Thus, gentlemen, we see that a man's country is not a certain 
area of land, — of mountains, rivers, and woods, — but it is prin- 
ciple ; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. 

In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm, this feeling be- 
comes closely associated with the soil and symbols of the country. 
But the secret sanctification of the soil and the symbol, is the 
idea which they represent ; and this idea, the patriot worships, 
through the name and the symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture 



238 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the glove of his mistress and wears a lock of her hair upon his 
heart. 

So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary 
of tenderly telling, Arnold von AVinkelried gathers into his bosom 
the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to 
his country. So Nathan Hale, disdaining no service that his 
country demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than 
God and the satisfied sense of duty. So George Washington, at 
once comprehending the scope of the destiny to which his coun- 
try was devoted, with one hand puts aside the crown, and with 
the other sets his slaves free. So, through all history from the 
beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and 
fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, 
through all history to the end, as long as men believe in God, 
that army must still inarch and fight and fall, — recruited only 
from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of 
humanity, strong only in their confidence in their cause. 

George William Curtis. 



TRUE PATRIOTISM EMBRACES MANKIND. 

Self-love is in alliance with principle to endear a home, a 
native land, to every human heart ; to give us an interest in a 
society with which we must rise and fall ; to engage our attach- 
ments to the spot where we first drew our breath, and where 
our tender infancy was reared ; with which are associated all 
the soothing remembrances of early years, and all our hopes of 
quiet and serenity in the evening of our days. 

The sympathies and affections that grow out of the near rela- 
tions of private life, constitute elements of the love of country. 
It presents itself to our thoughts with the recollection of a 
mother's smile, a father's revered image; with the loved idea 
of a spouse and child, a brother and sister, a benefactor and 
friend ; and, from this connection, has a power over our feelings 
that makes patriotism an instinct. 

A common interest in ancestral worth promotes this affection. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 239 

We love our country for the sake of those who have loved and 
served it in former and later periods ; honored worthies, whose 
labors have subdued her fields, and wisdom guided her coun- 
cils, and eloquence swayed her assemblies ; whose learning and 
talents have exalted her name ; whose piety has sustained her 
churches, and valor defended her borders. 

Religious sentiments and emotions hallow the feelings that 
unite us to our own land and to one another. Here is the 
church of the Most High, and here the houses of our solem- 
nities, in which we are accustomed to seek the favor and cele- 
brate the praises of the God of our fathers, the God of our 
salvation. 

The marks of divine favor shown to our nation, the striking 
interpositions of divine Providence in our behalf, cannot fail to 
enliven the patriotic sentiments of a pious mind. 

There is no want of arguments and motives to cultivate in 
ourselves and others public spirit. Truly the Maker of our 
frame and the Disposer of our lot requires us to regard the 
advantage and honor, to feel for the dangers and sufferings, to 
wish well to the inhabitants of the country which we call our 
own. All should care for all, bound together as they are by 
strong and tender ties, with interests blended, and, though 
various, not opposite. 

Geographical divisions must not be suffered to limit the walk 
of our benevolence ; nor shades of difference in religion, man- 
ners, state of society, to make us aliens ; nor should the passions 
produced by competition for influence, nor even the sense of 
unfriendly conduct in one section towards another, countervail, 
though they cannot but impair, the force of the incentives to 
sympathy and expanded patriotism. It is right to feel a pecu- 
liar and intimate concern for the smaller divisions and commu- 
nities to which we immediately belong. For members of a great 
confederacy to have no country but their state, of a state to be 
indifferent to all but their town or district, is miserable narrow- 
ness, or overweening self-love. To be destitute of local attach- 
ment, on the other hand, and to have proximity and distance 
alike to our feelings, is against nature, and truth, and reason. 

John Thornton Kirkland. 



240 PATRIOTIC READER. 



PATRIOTISM INCULCATES PUBLIC VIRTUE. 

There is a sort of courage to which — I frankly confess it — I 
do not lay claim; a holdness to which J dare not aspire; a valor 
which I cannot covet. I cannot lay myself down in the way 
of the welfare and happiness of my country. That, I cannot, I 
have not the courage to do. I cannot interpose the power with 
which I may be invested — a power conferred, not for m}^ per- 
sonal benefit or aggrandizement, but fur my country's good — 
to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I have not 
courage enough ; I am too cowardly for that ! 

I would not, I dare not, lie down and place m} r body across 
the path that leads my country to prosperity and happiness. 
This is a sort of courage widely different from that which a 
man may display in his private conduct and personal relations. 
Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that higher 
and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself 
a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. 

Apprehensions of the imputation of the want of firmness 
sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It 
is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the 
want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and 
offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the charac- 
ter of crimes, in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate 
victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, con- 
temptible circle of his own personal interests. All his thoughts 
are withdrawn from his country and concentrated on his con- 
sistency, his firmness, himself! 

The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriotism 
which, soaring towards heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or 
selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought 
i>1' (he good and glory of one's country, are never felt in his 
impenetrable bosom. That patriotism which, catching its inspi- 
ration from on high, and leaving at an immeasurable distance 
below all lesser, grovelling, personal interests and feelings, ani- 
mates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devo- 
tion, and of death itself, — that is public virtue; that is the 
noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues! 

Henry Clay. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE TEESENT AGE. 241 



PATRIOTISM ASSURES PUBLIC FAITH. 

To expatiate on the value of public faith, may pass, with some 
men, for declamation ; to such men I have nothing to say. To 
others I will urge, can any circumstance mark upon a people 
more turpitude and debasement, than the want of it ? Can any- 
thing tend more to make men think themselves mean, or degrade 
to a lower point their estimation of virtue, than such a standard 
of action ? 

It would not merely demoralize mankind ; it tends to break 
all the ligaments of society, to dissolve that mysterious charm 
which attracts individuals to the nation, and to inspire, in its 
stead, a repulsive sense of shame and disgust. 

What is patriotism ? Is it a narrow affection for the spot 
where a man was born ? Are the very clods where we tread 
entitled to this ardent preference because they are greener? 
No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue ; and it soars 
higher for its object. It is an extended self-love, mingling with 
all the enjoyments of life and twisting itself with the minutest 
filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey the laws of society, 
because they are the laws of virtue. In their authority we see, 
not the array of force and terror, but the venerable image of 
our country's honor. Ever} r good citizen makes that honor his 
own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is 
willing to risk his life in its defence, and is conscious that he 
gains protection while he gives it. For what rights of a citizen 
will be deemed inviolable, when a state renounces the principles 
that constitute their security ? Or if his life should not be 
invaded, what would its enjoyments be, in a country odious 
in the eyes-of strangers and dishonored in his own ? Could he 
look with affection and veneration to such a country, as his 
parent? The sense of having one would die within him; he 
would blush for his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly ) 
for it would be a vice. He would be a banished man in his 
native land. 

I see no exception to the respect that is paid among nations 
to the law of good faith. If there are cases in this enlightened 
period, when it is violated, there are none when it is decried. It 

lb 



242 PATRIOTIC READER. 

is observed by barbarians : a whiff of tobacco-smoke, or a string 
of beads, gives not merely binding force, but sanctity, to treaties. 
Even in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money ; but when 
ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown and annul 
its obligation. Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, 
nor the principles of an association for piracy and rapine, permit 
a nation to despise its engagements. If, sir, there could be a 
resurrection from the foot of the gallows, if the victims of 
justice could live again, collect together, and form a society, they 
would, however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make jus- 
tice, that justice under which they fell, the fundamental law of 
their state. They would perceive it was their interest to make 
others respect, and they would therefore soon pay some respect 
themselves to the obligations of good faith. 

It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make even the sup- 
position that America should furnish the occasion of this oppro- 
brium. No, let me not even imagine that a republican gov- 
ernment sprung, as our own is, from a people enlightened and 
uncoiTupted, a government whose origin is right, and whose 
daily discipline is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make its option 
to be faithless, can dare to act what despots dare not avow, what 
our own example evinces the states of Barbary are unsuspected 
of. No ; let me rather make the supposition that Great Britain 
refuses to execute the treaty after we have done everything to 
carry it into effect. Is there any language of reproach pungent 
enough to express your commentary on the fact? What would 
you say, or rather what would you not say ? Would you not tell 
them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame would stick 
to him, he would disown his country? You would exclaim, 
England, proud of your wealth and arrogant in the possession 
of power, blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles 
of your dishonor. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, 
Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and 
my sister. We should say of such a race of men, their name is 
a heavier burden than their debt. 

Fisher Ames. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 243 



PATRIOTISM BROAD AS HUMANITY. 

It is the ojrinion of many, that self-love is the grand impelling 
spring in the human machine. This sentiment is either utterly 
false, or the principle, as distinguished in some actions, becomes 
so exceedingly refined, as to merit a more engaging name. If 
the man who weeps in secret for the miseries of others and 
privately tenders relief, who sacrifices ease, property, health, and 
even life, to save his country, be actuated by self-love, it is a 
principle only inferior to that which prompted the Saviour of 
the world to die for man, and is but another name for perfect 
disinterestedness. 

Patriotism, whether we reflect upon the benevolence which 
gives it birth, the magnitude of its object, the happy effect which 
it produces, or the height to which it exalts human character, by 
the glorious action of which it is the cause, must be considered 
as the noblest of all the social virtues. The patriot is influenced 
by love for his fellow-men and an ardent desire to preserve 
sacred and inviolate their natural rights. His philanthropic 
views, not confined to the small circle of his private friends, are 
so extensive, as to embrace the liberty and happiness of a whole 
nation. That he may be instrumental, under heaven, to main- 
tain and secure these invaluable blessings to his country, he 
devotes his wealth, his fame, his life, his all. Glorious sacrifice ! 
What more noble ! 

To the honor of humanity, the histories of almost every age 
and nation are replete with examples of this elevated charac- 
ter. Every period of the world has afforded its "heroes and its 
patriots; men who could soar above the narrow views and 
grovelling principles which actuate so great a part of the 
human species, and drown every selfish consideration in the 
love of their country. But we need not advert to the annals 
of other ages and nations, as the history of our own country 
points with so much pleasure, veneration, and gratitude to the 
illustrious Washington. Before him the heroes of antiquity, 
shorn of their beams, like stars before the rising sun, hide their 
heads with shame. Uniting in his character the enterprising 
spirit of Hannibal, the prudent wisdom of Fabius, the disin- 



244 PATRIOTIC READER. 

terestedness of Cincinnatus, and the military talents of the 
Scipios, he could not fail to succeed in the glorious undertaking 
of giving libert}' and happiness to a people who dared to be 
free. Whilst he lived, he proved a rich blessing to his country, 
a bright example to the dawning patriotism of the Old World, 
the terror of despotism, and the delight and admiration of all 

mankind. 

Increase Cook. (1796.) 



HEROIC EXAMPLE HAS POWER. 

We must not forget the specific and invaluable influence 
exerted on the spirit of a people by those examples of signal 
heroism and chivalrous devotion for which a magnanimous war 
gives occasion, and which it exalts, as peace cannot, before 
men's minds. 

Almost five centuries ago, under the tumbling walls of Scm- 
pach, where Leopold stood with four thousand Austrians to 
crush the fourteen hundred Swiss who dared to confront him, 
one, springing upon the foe with wide-spread arms, gathered 
into his breast a sheaf of spears, and made a way above his 
body for that triumphant valor which pierced and broke the 
horrid ranks, and set a new and bloody seal to the rightful 
autonomy of the mountain republic. The hardy Switzers 
will not forget the daring deed and magic name of Arnold 
Winkelried ! 

Before Herodotus wrote his history, before JSTehemiah rebuilt 
Jerusalem, before Cincinnatus was dictator at Rome, under the 
shadow of Mount iEtna, a thousand men, Spartans and Thes- 
pians, fell, to a man, unwilling to retreat before the invader. It 
is not even irreverent to say, that, save one cross, beneath which 
Earth herself did shiver, no other hath lifted its head so high, 
or flung its arms so wide abroad to scatter inspiring influence, 
as did that cross on which the Persian nailed, in fury, the dead 
Leonidas! . . . 

Such examples as these become powers in civilization. History 
hurries from the drier details, and is touched with enthusiasm 
as she draws near to them. Eloquence delights to rehearse and 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PEESENT AGE. 245 

impress them! The songs of a nation repeat their story, and 
make their triumph sound again through the silver cymbals of 
speech. Legends prolong and art commemorates them. Lan- 
guage itself takes new images from them ; and words, that are 
themselves " half battles," are suddenly born at their recital. 
The very household life is exalted ; and the humblest feels his 
position higher, and expresses his sense of it in a more daunt- 
less bearing, as he sees that heroism still lives in the world ; that 
men of his own race and stuff, perhaps of his own neighbor- 
hood, even, have faced, so calmly, such vast perils, 

Kichard Salter Storrs, Jr. (1863.) 



HEROES AND MARTYRS TO BE HONORED. 

Heroes and martyrs ! They are the men of the hour. They 
are identified with the names that live upon the lips of millions! 
Our heroes ! Named in the homes of all who have left home and 
occupation, comfort and kindred, and stood in the midst of battle; 
presented to us in glorious clusters on many a deck and field ! 

But where the hero stands, there also the martyr dies. With 
the chorus of victory blends the dirge, mournful, and yet ma- 
jestic too. The burden of that dirge, as it falls from the lips of 
wives and mothers, of fathers and children, is sad and tender, 
like the strain of David for those who fell upon G-ilboa! That 
burden is still mournful, but as time passes on, and it re-issues 
from a nation's lips, it swells also into exultation and honor, — 
that same burden, "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of 
battle !" 

Some of us, perhaps, have read of that company whom their 
brave officer had so often led to victory, and who would never 
part with their dead hero's name. Still, day by day, it is called 
aloud. The generation that loved him has passed away, but 
their sons and their sons' sons will ever and always love the 
honored name ! " Cornet Latour d'Auvergne," still first of the 
brave band, is summoned ; and ever and always a brave soldier 
steps from the front rank to reply, "Dead, on the field of honor." 



246 PATRIOTIC READER. 

"Dead, on the field of honor!" This, too, is the record of 
thousands of unnamed men whose influence upon other genera- 
tions is associated with no personal distinction, but whose sacri- 
fice will lend undying lustre to the nation's archives, and richer 
lustre to the nation's life. Go visit the mourning homes of the 
land ; homes of wealth and plenty, some of them, but richer now 
by the consecration of sacrifice. Many are homes of toil and 
obscurity, from which the right hand of support has been 
taken, or the youthful prop. Poor and obscure; but these, the 
unknown fallen, have names and riches of solemn and tender 
memory. And what heralding on palatial wall, more glorious, 
than the torn cap and soiled uniforms that hang in those homes 
where the dead soldier comes, no more I 

Sleep, sleep in quiet graves, grassy graves, where the symbols 
that ye loved so well shall cover and spread over you, by day, 
the flowers of the red, white, and blue, and by night, the con- 
stellated stars, while out of those graves there grows the better 
harvest of the nation and of times to come ! 

Edwin Hubbell Chapin. (1864.) 



THE NOBILITY OP LABOR. 

I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility 
of labor. It is heaven's great ordinance for human improve- 
ment. Let not that great ordinance be broken down. What 
do I say? It is broken down; and it has been broken down 
for ages. Let it, then, be built up again ; here, if anywhere, on 
these shores of a new world, of a new civilization. But how, I 
may be asked, is it broken down ? Do not men toil? it may be 
said. They do indeed toil ; but they too generally do it, because 
they must. Many submit to it as, in some sort, a degrading neces- 
sity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as escape from it. 
They fulfil the great law of labor in the letter, but break it in 
the spirit; fulfil it with the muscle, but break it with the mind. 
To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should 
fasten, as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 247 

so he is not impelled to do, under the teachings of our imperfect 
civilization. On the contrary, he sits down, folds his hands, 
and blesses himself in his idleness. This way of thinking is the 
heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system under which 
serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and 
feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done 
away. Ashamed to toil, art thou ? Ashamed of thy dingy 
workshop and dusty labor-field ; of thy hard hand, scarred with 
service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and 
weather-stained garments, on which Mother Nature has em- 
broidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own 
heraldic honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and 
envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity ? 
It is treason to nature, it is impiety to heaven, it is breaking 
heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat, toil, either of the 
brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, 

the only true nobility. 

Ortille Dewey. 



LABOR IS WORSHIP. 

Pause not to dream of the future before us ; 
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us ; 
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, 

Unintermitting, goes up into heaven. 
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing ; 
Never the little seed stops in its growing ; 
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, 

Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. 

" Labor is worship !" the robin is singing ; 
"Labor is worship!" the wild bee is ringing; 
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing 

Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart. 
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower ; 
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower ; 
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ; 

Only man, in the plan, ever shrinks from his part. 



248 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Labor is life ! Tis the still water faileth ; 

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; 

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
Labor is glory ! — the flying cloud lightens ; 
Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens ; 

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune. 

Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, 
Best from all petty vexations that meet us, 
Eest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, 

Eest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. 
Work — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
Work — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow ; 
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping- willow ; 

Work with a stout heart and resolute will ! 

Labor is health ! Lo, the husbandman reaping, 
How through his veins goes the life-current leaping! 
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping, 

True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides ! 
Labor is wealth ! In the sea the pearl groweth ; 
Kich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth ; 
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ; 

Temple and statue the marble block hides. 

Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish are round thee : 
Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee; 
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee ; 

Best not content in thy darkness — a clod. 
Work for some good, be it ever so slowly; 
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly ; 
Labor ! all labor is noble and holy ; 

Let thy great deeds be tby prayer to thy God. 

Frances Sargent Osgood. 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 249 



IDLENESS A CRIME. 

Patriotism i8 an active principle, exacting of its subject full 
acceptance of the fact that the aggregate of national good de- 
pends upon the fullest possible meed of individual good. Indi- 
vidual support at the expense of society, without a contributive 
return, is robbery. Protection in life's work demands that con- 
tributive share of aid to protect others. Just as optional obe- 
dience to law is a senseless paradox, so is the assumption of any, 
" I will be idle if I please to be idle." At that instant the idler 
forces others to do for him, unrequited, what he is bound to do 
for himself. This is not a matter of ethics or morals mei'ely, 
but of social peace. Labor that enters into the aggregate of 
national industry is an obligation as well as a necessity. The 
liability to military service, or to help preserve the peace, is only 
a part of the obligation which fastens upon voluntary vagrancy, 
in the non-self-supporting sense, the character of crime. Even 
a professed readiness to take the consequences of the infraction 
of law or obligation does not convert the wrong to right. 

Delay or temporary suspension of work incident to the 
changing relations of labor and product, pending a fair ad- 
justment of terms and conditions, is legitimate and reasonable ; 
but in its arbitrary exercise may prove not only suicidal to the 
individual, but ruinous to the rights of society at large, which 
are secured only through the contributed and balanced industry 
of all. 

Innocent idleness, irrespective of the adjustments, from time 
to time needed, is impossible. Not to rescue a drowning man is 
to drown him ! There is no negative idleness! It tears down, 
but does not rebuild. It is not only irrational to expect support 
without a contributive return, but is at the expense of, and 
works violence to, the rights of all faithful workers. Even if the 
popular fallacy that a man may work, or not, at his pleasure, had 
a technical basis of merit, it loses all recognition when it asserts 
a claim to suspend or paralyze other labor than its own. 

Mental faculties and physical activities will not lie dormant. 
The industrious will save. The improvident will waste. Re- 
move the incentive to labor for worthy ends, and at once all 



250 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

the lower animal elements which are harmonized, softened, and 
wisely subjected, through legitimate exercise, will assert their 
presence for harm. The motive to industry must be acquisition 
for proper use, and the good of society as well, or human life 
becomes more abject than that of instinct. Free, honest, and 
patient labor develops the highest types of domestic and social 
good ; and the principle of patriotism cannot obtain where 
voluntary idleness is tolerated, or condoned. An uncertain and 
changeable wage-rate is inevitable, in all kinds of labor, mental 
or physical ; but emotional love of country will be measured by 
the zeal with which the citizen enters into his work, and finds, 
in his own success, a corresponding appreciation of all the values 
which make both home and country his joy and pride. 



INTERNATIONAL SYMPATHIES ON THE INCREASE. 

In many respects, the nations of Christendom, collectively, are 
becoming somewhat analogous to our own Federal republic. 
Antiquated distinctions are breaking away, and local animosities 
are subsiding. The common people of different countries are 
knowing each other better, esteeming each other more, and at- 
taching themselves to each other, by various manifestations of 
reciprocal good will. It is true, every nation has still its separate 
boundaries and its individual interests; hut the freedom of com- 
mercial intercourse is allowing those interests to adjust them- 
selves to each other, and thus rendering the causes of collision of 
vastly less frequent occurrence. Local questions are becoming 
of less, and general questions of greater, importance. Thanks 
be to God, men have at last begun to understand the rights, and 
feel for the wrongs, of each other ! Mountains interposed, do not 
so much make enemies of nations. Let the trumpet of alarm be 
sounded, and its notes are now heard by every nation, whether 
of Europe or America. Let a voice borne on the feeblest breeze 
tell that the rights of man are in danger, and it floats over 
valley and mountain, across continent and ocean, until it has 
vibrated on the ear of the remotest dweller in Christendom. Let 
the arm of Oppression be raised to crush the feeblest nation on 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 251 

earth, and there will be heard everywhere, if not the shout 
of defiance, at least the deep-toned murmur of implacable dis- 
pleasure. It is the cry of aggrieved, insulted, much-abused 
man. It is human nature waking in her might from the 
slumber of ages, shaking herself from the dust of antiquated 
institutions, girding herself for the combat, and going forth 
conquering and to conquer ; and woe unto the man, woe unto 
the dynasty, woe unto the party, and woe unto the policy, on 
whom shall fall the scath of her blighting indignation ! 

Francis Wayland. 



EUROPE AND AMERICA HAVE COMMON RESPON- 
SIBILITIES. 

In many respects the European and the American nations 
are alike. They are alike Christian states, civilized states, and 
commercial states. They have access to the same common foun- 
tains of intelligence ; they all draw from those sources which 
belong to the whole civilized world. In knowledge and letters, 
in the arts of peace and war, they differ in degrees ; but they 
bear, nevertheless, a general resemblance. 

On the other hand, in matters of government and social insti- 
tutions, the nations on this continent are founded upon principles 
which never did prevail, in considerable extent, either at any 
other time, or in any other place. There has never been pre- 
sented to the mind of man a more interesting subject of contem- 
plation, than the establishment of so many nations in America, 
partaking in the civilization and in the arts of the Old World, 
but having left behind them those cumbrous institutions which 
had their origin in a dark and military age. 

Whatsoever European experience has developed favorable 
to the freedom and happiness of man ; whatsoever European 
genius has invented, for his improvement or gratification ; what- 
soever of refinement or polish the culture of European society 
presents, for his adoption and enjoyment, — all this is offered to 
man in America, with the additional advantage of the full power 
of erecting forms of government, on free and simple principles, 
without overturning institutions suited to times long past, but 



252 PATEIOTIC READER. 

too strongly supported, either by interests or prejudices, to bo 
shaken without convulsions. 

This unprecedented state of things presents the happiest of all 
occasions for an attempt to establish national intercourse upon 
improved principles; upon principles tending to peace and the 
mutual prosperity of nations. In this respect America, the whole 
of America, has a new career before her. If we look back on the 
history of Europe, we see how great a portion of the last two 
centuries her states have been at war for interests connected 
mainly with her feudal monarchies ; wars, for particular dynas- 
ties; wars, to support or defeat particular successions; wars, in 
fine, to enforce or to resist religious intolerance. What long 
and bloody chapters do these not fill, in the history of European 
politics ! 

Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to see, that 
America has a glorious chance of escaping, at least, these causes 
of contention ? Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to 
see, that, on this continent, under other forms of government, 
we have before us the noble hope of being able, by the mere 
influence of civil liberty and religious toleration, to dry up 
these outpouring fountains of blood, and to extinguish these 
consuming fires of war ? The general opinion of the age favors 
such hopes and such prospects. There is a growing disposition 
to treat the intercourse of nations more like the useful inter- 
course of friends. Philosophy, just views of national advantage, 
good sense, the dictates of a common religion, and an increasing 
conviction that war is not the interest of the human race, — all 
concur to increase the interest created by this new accession 

to the list of nations. 

Daniel Webster. 



THE UNITED STATES OP EUROPE FORE- 
SHADOWED. 

(From Address before the Peace Congress, at Paris, 1849.) 

A day will come when you, France, — you, Russia, — you, Italy, 
— you, England, — you, German}^, — all you nations of the Con- 
tinent, shall, without losing your distinctive qualities and your 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 253 

glorious individuality, blend in a higher unity, and form a Euro- 
pean fraternity, even as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lor- 
raine, Alsace, all the French provinces, blended into France. A 
day will come when war shall seem as impossible between Paris 
and London, between Petersburg and Berlin, as between Pouen 
and Amiens, between Boston and Philadelphia. A day will 
come when bullets and bombs shall be replaced by ballots, by 
the universal suffrages of the people, by the sacred arbitrament 
of a great Sovereign Senate, which shall be to Europe what the 
Parliament is to England, what the Diet is to Germany, what 
the Legislative Assembly is to France. A day will come when 
a cannon shall be exhibited in our museums, as an instrument 
of torture is now, and men shall marvel that such things could 
be. A day will come when we shall see those two immense 
gi*oups, the United States of America and the United States of 
Europe, in face of each other, extending hand to hand over the 
ocean, exchanging their products, their commerce, their industry, 
their art; their genius clearing the earth, colonizing deserts, and 
ameliorating creation under the eye of the Creator. 

And, for that day to arrive, it is not necessary that four hun- 
dred years should pass ; for we live in a fast time ; we live in a 
current of events and of ideas, the most impetuous that has ever 
swept along the nations, and an epoch when a year may some- 
times effect the work of a century. And to you I appeal, 
French, English, Germans, Eussians, Sclaves, Europeans, Ameri- 
cans, what have we to do to hasten the coming of that great 
day ? Love one another ! To love one another, in this immense 
work of pacification, is the best way of aiding God. For God 
wills that this sublime end should be accomplished. And see, 
for the attainment of it, what, on all sides, he is doing. See 
what discoveries he causes to spring from the human brain, all 
tending to the great end of peace ! What progress ! What 
simplifications ! How does nature, more and more, suffer her- 
self to be vanquished by man ! How does matter become, more 
and more, the slave of intelligence and the servant of civiliza- 
tion! How do the causes of war vanish with the causes of 
suffering! How are remote nations brought near! How is 
distance abridged ! And how does this abridgment make men 
more like brothers I Thanks to railroads, Europe will soon be 



254 PATRIOTIC READER. 

no larger than Franco was in the Middle Ages! Thanks to 
steamships, we now traverse the ocean more easily than we 
could the Mediterranean once ! Yet a few yeai-s more, and the 
electric thread of concord shall encircle the globe and unite the 
world ! 

When I consider all that Providence has done for us, and all 
that politicians have done against us, a melancholy considera- 
tion presents itself. Europe spends annually the sum of five 
hundred millions of dollars to maintain armies. If, for the last 
thirty-two years, this enormous sum had been expended in the 
interests of peace, know you what would have happened ? The 
face of the world would have been changed. Isthmuses would 
have been cut through ; rivers would have been channelled, 
mountains tunnelled. Eailroads would have covered the two 
continents. The merchant tonnage of the world would have 
increased a hundred-fold. There would be nowhere barren 
plains, nor moors, nor marshes. Cities would be seen where 
now all is solitude. Harbors would have been dug where shoals 
and rocks now threaten navigation. Asia would be raised to a 
state of civilization. Africa would be restored to man. Abun- 
dance would flow forth from every side, from all the veins of 
the earth, beneath the labor of the whole family of man, and 
misery would disappear. And with misery, what would also 
disappear ? Eevolutions ! Yes, the face of the world would be 
changed. Instead of destroying one another, men would peace- 
fully people the waste places of the earth. Instead of making 
revolutions, they would establish colonies. Instead of bringing 
back barbarism into civilization, they would carry civilization 

into barbarism. 

Victor Marie Hugo. 



THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. 

What American can survey the held of battle at Bunker Hill, 
or at New Orleans, without recalling the deeds which will render 
these names imperishable? Who can pass the islands of Lake 
Erie without thinking upon those who sleep in the waters below } 
and upon the victory which broke the power of the enemy and 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 255 

led to the security of an extensive frontier ? There no monu- 
ment can be erected, for the waves roll and will roll over them. 
But he who met the enemy and made them ours, and his de- 
voted companions, will live in the recollections of the American 
people while there is virtue to admire patriotism, or gratitude to 
reward it. 

I have stood upon the Plain of Marathon, the battle-field of 
Liberty. It is silent and desolate. Neither Greek nor Persian 
is there, to give life and animation to the scene. It is bounded 
by sterile hills on one side, and lashed by the eternal waves of 
the iEgean Sea on the other. But Greek and Persian were once 
there, and that dreary spot was alive with hostile armies, who 
fought the great fight which rescued Greece from the yoke of 
Persia. 

And I have also stood upon the Hill of Zion, the City of Jeru- 
salem, the scene of our Eedeemer's sufferings, and crucifixion, and 
ascension. But the sceptre has departed from Judah, and its 
glory from the capital of Solomon. The Assyrian, the Egyptian, 
the Greek, the Eoman, the Arab, the Turk, and the Crusader, 
have passed over this chief place of Israel, and have reft it of 
its power and beauty. Well has the denunciation of the prophet 
of misfortune been fulfilled, when he declared that " the Lord had 
set his face against this city for evil, and not for good," when 
he pronounced the words of the Most High, " I will cause to 
cease from the city of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, 
the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the 
bridegroom, and the voice of the bride : for the land shall be 
desolate." 

In those regions of the East where society passed its infancy 
it seems to have reached decrepitude. If the associations which 
the memory of the past glory excites are powerful, they are mel- 
ancholy. They are without joy for the present, without hope for 
the future. But here, we are in the freshness of youth, and can 
look forward with national confidence to ages of progress in all 
that gives power and pride to man, and dignity to human nature. 
No deeds of glory hallow this region ! But nature has been 
bountiful to it in its best gifts, and art and industry are at work 
to extend and improve them. You cannot pierce the barrier 
which shuts in the past, and separates you from the great high- 



256 PATRIOTIC READER. 

way of nations. You have opened a vista to the Atlantic and 
the Gulf of Mexico. From this elevated point two seas are 
before us, which your energy and perseverance have brought 
within reach. It is better to look forward to prosperity than 
backward to glory. To the mental eye no prospect can be moi*e 
magnificent than here meets the vision. I need not stop to de- 
scribe it. It is before us in the long regions of fertile land which 
stretch off to the east and the west, to the north and the south, 
in all the advantages that Providence has liberally bestowed 
upon them, and in the changes and improvements which man is 
making. The forest is fading and falling, and towns and vil- 
lages are rising and flourishing. And, better still, a moral, intel- 
ligent, and industrious people are spreading themselves over the 
whole face of the country, and making it their own and their 
home. And what changes and chances await us ! Shall we 
go on increasing, and improving, and united, or shall we add 
another to the list of republics which have preceded us, and 
which have fallen the victim of their own follies and dissen- 
sions? My faith in the stability of our institutions is enduring, 
my hope is strong ; for they rest upon public virtue and intelli- 
gence. Lewis Cass. 



THE SPIRIT OP THE AGE ADVERSE TO WAR. 

War will yet cease from the whole earth, for God himself has 
said it shall. As an infidel I might doubt this, but as a Christian 
I cannot. If God has taught anything in the Bible, he has taught 
peace ; if he has promised anything there, he has promised peace, 
ultimate peace, to the whole world ; and unless the night of a 
godless scepticism should settle on my soul, I must believe 
on, and hope on, and work on, until the nations, from pole to 
pole, shall beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into 
pruning-hooks, and learn war no more. I see, or think I see, the 
dawn of that coming day! I see it in the new and better spirit 
of the age ! I see it in the press, the pulpit, and the school ! I 
see it in every factory, and steamship, and rail-car ! I see it in 
every enterprise of Christian benevolence and reform ! I see it 
in all the means of general improvement, in all the good influences 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 257 

of the age, now at work over the whole earth ! Yes, there is a 
spirit abroad that can never rest until the war-demon is hunted 
from the habitations of men, — the spirit that is now pushing its 
enterprises and improvements in every direction ; the spirit that 
is unfurling the white flag of commerce on every sea and bar- 
tering its commodities in every port ; the spirit that is laying 
every power of nature, as well as the utmost resources of human 
ingenuity, under the largest contributions possible for the general 
welfare of mankind ; the spirit that hunts out from your cities' 
darkest alleys, the outcasts of poverty and crime, for relief and 
reform, — nay, goes down into the barred and bolted dungeons of 
penal vengeance and brings up its callous, haggard victims into 
the sunlight of a love that pities even while it smites ; the spirit 
that is everywhere rearing hospitals for the sick, retreats for the 
insane, and schools that all but teach the dumb to speak, the 
deaf to hear, and the blind to see ; the spirit that harnesses the 
fire-horse in his iron gear, and sends him, panting with hot but 
unwearied breath, across empires, and continents, and seas ; the 
spirit that catches the very lightning of heaven and makes it 
bear messages, swift almost as thought, from city to city, from 
country to country, round the globe ; the spirit that subsidizes 
all these to the godlike work of a world's salvation, and em- 
ploys them to scatter the blessed truths of the gospel, thick as 
leaves of autumn or dew-drops of morning, all over the earth ; 
the spirit that is, at length, weaving the sympathies and interests 
of our whole race into the web of one vast fraternity, and stamp- 
ing upon it, or writing over it, in characters bright as sunbeams, 
these simple yet glorious truths : the Fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man ! Is it possible for such a spirit to rest, 
until it shall have swept war from the earth forever ? 

John Watrotjs Beckwith. 



THE REIGN OP PEACE FORESHADOWED. 

That future which filled the lofty visions of sages and bards 
of Greece and Rome, which was foretold by prophets and her- 

17 



258 PATRIOTIC READER. 

aided by the evangelists, when man. in happy isles or in a new 
paradise, shall confess the loveliness of peace, may be secured, 
by your care, if not for yourselves, at least for your children. 
Believe that you can do it, and you can do it ! The true golden 
age is before you, and not behind you. If man has been driven 
once from paradise, while an angel with naming sword forbade 
his return, there is another paradise, even on earth, which he 
may form for himself by the cultivation of knowledge, religion, 
and the kindly virtues of life ; where the confusion of tongues 
shall be dissolved in the union of hearts, and joyous nature, bor- 
rowing prolific charms from the prevailing harmony, shall spread 
her lap with unimagined bounty, and there shall be a perpetual 
jocund spring, and sweet strains borne on " odoriferous wing 
of gentle gales,"' through valleys of delight more pleasant than 
the vale of Tempe, richer than the garden of the Hesperides, 
with no dragon to guai'd its golden fruit. 

Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work. 
The robber conquerors of the past, from their fiery sepulchres, 
demand it ; the precious blood of millions unjustly shed in war, 
crying from the ground, demands it ; the voices of all good men 
demand it ; and the conscience, even of the soldier, whispers, 
" Peace." There are considerations springing from our situation 
and condition, which fervently invite us to take the lead in this 
work. Ilere, should bend the patriotic ardor of the land, the 
ambition of the statesman, the efforts of the scholar, the per- 
suasive influence of the press, the mild persuasion of the sanct- 
uary, the early teachings of the school. Here, in ampler ether 
and diviner air, are untried fields for exalted triumphs, more 
truly worthy the American name than any snatched from rivers 
of blood. War is known as the last reason of kings. Let it be 
no reason of our republic. Let us renounce and throw off for- 
ever, the yoke of a tyranny more oppressive than any in the 
annals of the world. As those standing on the mountain-tops 
discern the coming beams of morning, let us. from the vantage- 
ground of liberal institutions, firsl recognize the ascending sun 
of the new era. Lift high the gates and let the king of glory 
in, and the king of true glory. — of peace! 

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at 
least one spot, the small island of Delos, dedicated to the g^^^- 



THE DEMANDS OF THE PRESENT AGE. 259 

and kept at all times sacred from war. No hostile foot ever 
sought to press this kindly soil, and the citizens of all countries 
here met in common worship beneath the segis of inviolable 
peace. So let us dedicate our beloved country, and may the 
blessed consecration be felt in all its parts, everywhere through- 
out its ample domain ! The Temple of Honor shall be surrounded 
here, at last, by the Temple of Concord, that it may never more 
be entered through any portal of war ; the horn of abundance 
shall overflow at its gates; the angel of religion shall be the 
guide over its flashing steps of adamant ; while within its enrap- 
tured courts, purged of violence and wrong, Justice, returned to 
the earth from her long exile in the skies, with mighty scales for 
nations, as well as for men, shall rear her serene and majestic 
front ; and by her side, greatest of all, Charity, sublime in meek- 
ness, hoping all and enduring all, shall divinely temper every 
righteous decree, and with words of infinite cheer shall inspire 
those good works that cannot vanish away. And the future 
chiefs of the republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new 
era, unspotted by human blood, shall be " the first in peace, and 
the first in the hearts of their countrymen." 

Eut while seeking these blissful glories for ourselves, let us 
strive to tender them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the 
truce of God to the whole world, forever. Let the selfish boast 
of the Spartan women become the grand chorus of mankind, — 
that they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's camp. Let 
the iron belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth 
be exchanged for the golden cestus of peace, clothed with all 
celestial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent 
homage that was bestowed by massacring soldiers upon the spot 
occupied by the sepulchre of our Lord. Vain man ! to restrain 
his regard to a few feet of sacred mould. The whole earth is 
the sepulchre of the Lord ; nor can any righteous man profane 
any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth, and now, on this 
Sabbath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand temple of 
universal peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament 
of heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself. 

Charles Sumner. 



260 PATRIOTIC READER. 



DUTY TO ONE'S COUNTRY. 

Our country is a whole, my Publius, 

Of which we all are parts ; nor should a citizen 

Regard his interests as distinct from hers ; 

No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul 

But what affect her honor or her shame. 

E'en when in hostile fields he bleeds to save her, 

'Tis not his blood he loses, 'tis his country's ; 

He only pays her back a debt he owes. 

To her he's bound for birth and education, 

Her laws secure him from domestic feuds, 

And from the foreign foe her arms pi'otect him. 

She lends him honors, dignity, and rank, 

His wrongs revenges, and his merit pays ; 

And, like a tender and indulgent mother, 

Loads him with comforts, and would make his state 

As blessed as nature and the gods designed it. 

Such gifts, my son, have their alloy of pain, 

And let the unworthy wretch, who will not bear 

His portion of the public burden, lose 

The advantages it yields ; let him retire 

From the dear blessings of a social life, 

And from the sacred laws which guard those blessings ; 

Renounce the civilized abodes of man; 

With kindred brutes, one common shelter seek 

In horrid wilds, and dens, and dreary caves, 

And with their shaggy tenants share the spoils ; 

Or, if the shaggy hunters miss their prey, 

From scattered acorns pick a scanty meal, 

Far from the sweet civilities of life ; 

There let him live, and vaunt his wretched freedom, 

While we, obedient to the laws that guard us, 

Guard them, and live or die, as they decree. 

William Cowpkr. 



PART VIII. 

SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The history of the United States since the achievement of 
national independence has, in an extraordinary degree, verified 
the wisdom of the men who founded the government and framed 
its Constitution. Every important domestic or foreign issue 
which that history has unfolded, was clearly anticipated. The 
debates in Congress, State legislation, the expansion or acquisi- 
tion of territory, the changing relations of slavery, the develop- 
ment of the fisheries, the revenue changes, the reciprocal and 
specific relations or obligations of the Federal and the State gov- 
ernments, have been legitimate developments of well-appreciated 
and fully-anticipated principles and wise forethought. These 
developments have realized the hopes of the fathers, and escaped 
the dangers which they most anxiously dreaded. The republic 
has accepted the expressed will of the majority, and patiently 
re-submitted to the people all matters which seemed of doubtful 
wisdom, in the successive changes of administration or policy. It 
has been found that the people are ever in advance of the poli- 
ticians, and that an inherent sense of what is truly patriotic and 
best for home-life will rightly shape the national life. Apart from 
the development of independence during the Eevolutionary War, 
and separate from the succession of public utterances which il- 
lustrate the nation's growth, are other addresses, which may well 
be given a place, as early expressions of the satisfaction of the 
fathers with their work and its early progress. 

On the 4th of July, 1787, the year of the adoption of the 
Constitution, and a few days before the passage of the " Ordi- 

261 



262 PATRIOTIC READER. 

nance of '87," Joel Barlow, of Connecticut, eminent as states- 
man and poet, addressed the " Society of the Cincinnati," at 
Hartford, Connecticut, and stated the philosophy of the Eevo- 
lution in words of permanent value. 

ADDRESS OF JOEL BARLOW. (July 4, 1787.) 

On the anniversary of so great an event as the birth of the empire in 
which we live, none will question the propriety of passing a few moments 
in contemplating the various objects suggested to the mind by the important 
occasion ; and while the nourishment, the growth, and even the existence of 
our empire depend upon the united efforts of an extensive and divided people, 
the duties of this day ascend from amusement and congratulation to a serious 
patriotic employment. 

We are assembled, not to boast, but to realize, not to inflate our national 
vanity by a pompous relation of past achievements in the council or the 
field, but, from a modest retrospect of the truly dignified part already acted 
by our countrymen, from an accurate view of our present situation, and from 
an anticipation of the scenes that remain to be unfolded, to discern and 
familiarize the duties that still await us as citizens, as soldiers, and as men. 

Revolutions in other countries have been effected by accident. The 
faculties of human reason and the rights of human nature have been the 
sport of chance and the prey of ambition. When indignation has burst the 
bands of slavery, to the destruction of one tyrant, it was only to impose the 
manacles of another. This arose from the imperfection of that early stage 
of society, the foundations of empires being laid in ignorance, with a total 
inability of foreseeing the improvements of civilization, or of adapting 
government to a state of social refinement. On the western continent a new 
task, totally unknown to the legislators of other nations, was imposed upon 
the fathers of the American empire. Here was a people, lords of the soil 
on which they trod, commanding a prodigious length of coast, and an equal 
breadth of frontier, a people habituated to liberty, professing a mild and 
benevolent religion, and highly advanced in science and civilization. To 
conduct such a people in a revolution, the address must be made to reason, 
as well as the passions. 

In what other age or nation has a people, at ease upon their own farms, 
secure and distant from the approach of fleets and armies, tide-waiters and 
stamp-masters, reasoned, before they had felt, and, from the dictates of duty 
and conscience, encountered dangers, distress, and poverty, for the sake of 
securing to posterity a government of independence and peace? Here was 
no Cromwell to inflame the people with bigotry and zeal ; no Caesar to re- 
ward his followers with the spoils of vanquished foes ; and no territory to be 
acquired by conquest. Ambition, superstition, and avarice, those universal 
torches of war, never illumed an American field of battle. But the perma- 
nent principles of sober policy spread through the colonies, roused the people 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 263 

to assert their rights, and conducted the revolution. Those principles were 
nohle, as they were new and unprecedented in the history of human actions. 
The majority of a great people, on a subject which they understand, will 
never act wrong. 

Our duty calls us to act worthy of the age and the country that gave us 
birth. Every possible encouragement for great and generous exertions is 
presented before us. The natural resources are inconceivably various and 
great. The enterprising genius of the people promises a most rapid improve- 
ment in all the arts that embellish human nature. The blessings of a rational 
government will invite emigrations from the rest of the world and fill the 
empire with the worthiest and happiest of mankind ; while the example of 
political wisdom and sagacity, here to be displayed, will excite emulation 
through the kingdoms of the earth, and meliorate the condition of the 
human race. 

On the 4th of July, six years later, at Boston, John Quincy 
Adams, with equal wisdom and faith, placed on record his own 
convictions as to the value of the results, realized and prospec- 
tive. 

ADDRESS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. (July 4, 1793.) 

Americans ! let us pause for a moment to consider the situation of our 
country at that eventful day when our national existence commenced. In 
the full possession and enjoyment of all those prerogatives for which you 
then dared to adventure upon " all the varieties of untried being," the calm 
and settled moderation of the mind is scarcely competent to conceive the 
tone of heroism to which the souls of freemen were exalted in that hour of 
perilous magnanimity. 

Seventeen times has the sun, in the progress of his annual revolutions, 
diffused his prolific radiance over the plains of independent America. 
Millions of hearts, which then palpitated with the rapturous glow of patri- 
otism, have already been translated to brighter worlds ; to the abodes of more 
than mortal freedom. 

Other millions have arisen, to receive from their parents and benefactors 
the inestimable recompense of their achievements. 

A large proportion of the audience, whose benevolence is at this moment 
listening to the speaker of the day, like him, were at that period too little 
advanced beyond the threshold of life to partake of the divine enthusiasm 
which inspired the American bosom ; which prompted her voice to proclaim 
defiance to the thunders of Britain ; which consecrated the banners of her 
armies ; and finally erected the holy temple of American Liberty over the 
tomb of departed tyranny. 

It is from those who have already passed the meridian of life ; it is 
from you, ye venerable assertors of the rights of mankind, that we are to be 
informed what were the feelings which swayed within your breasts and 



264 PATRIOTIC READER. 

impelled you to action ; when, like the stripling of Israel, with scarcely a 
weapon to attack, and without a shield for your defence, you met and, undis- 
mayed, engaged with the gigantic greatness of the British power. 

Untutored in the disgraceful science of human butchery ; destitute of the 
fatal materials which the ingenuity of man has combined to sharpen the 
scythe of death ; unsupported by the arm of any friendly alliance, and un- 
fortified against the powerful assaults of an unrelenting enemy, you did not 
hesitate at that moment, when your coasts were infested by a formidable 
fleet, when your territories were invaded by a numerous and veteran army, 
to pronounce the sentence of eternal separation from Britain, and to throw 
the gauntlet at a power, the terror of whose recent triumphs was almost co- 
extensive with the earth. 

The interested and selfish propensities which, in times of prosperous tran- 
quillity, have such powerful dominion over the heart, were all expelled, and 
in their stead the public virtues, the spirit of personal devotion to the com- 
mon cause, a contempt of every danger, in comparison with the subserviency 
of the country, had assumed an unlimited control. 

The passion for the public had absorbed all the rest, as the glorious lumi- 
nary of heaven extinguishes, in a flood of refulgence, the twinkling splendor 
of every inferior planet. Those of you, my countrymen, who were actors 
in those interesting scenes will best know how feeble and impotent is the 
language of this description, to express the impassioned emotions of the soul 
with which you were then agitated. 

Yet it were injustice to conclude from thence, or from the greater preva- 
lence of private and personal motives in these days of calm serenity, that 
your sons have degenerated from the virtues of their fathers. Let it rather 
be a subject of pleasing reflection to you that the generous and disinterested 
energies which you were summoned to display, are permitted, by the bounti- 
ful indulgence of heaven, to remain latent in the bosoms of your children.. 

From the present prosperous appearance of our public affairs, we may admit 
a rational hope that our country will have no occasion to require of us those 
extraordinary and heroic exertions, which it was your fortune to exhibit. 

But from the common versatility of all human destiny, should the pros- 
pect hereafter darken, and the clouds of public misfortune thicken to a tem- 
pest ; should the voice of our country's calamity ever call us to her relief, we 
swear, by the precious memory of the sages who toiled and of the heroes who 
bled in her defence, that we will prove ourselves not unworthy of the prize 
which they so dearly purchased ; that we will act as the faithful disciples of 
those who so magnanimously taught us the instructive lesson of republican 
virtue. 

On the twentioth anniversary of American independence John 
Lathrop delivered an oration at Boston, drawing even a brighter 
picture of the future, and a clearer outline of the struggle which 
the day honored. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 265 



EXTRACT FROM ADDRESS OF JOHN LATHROP. (July 4, 1796.) 

In the war for independence America had hut one object in view, for in 
independence are concentrated and condensed every blessing that makes life 
desirable, every right and privilege which can tend to the happiness, or secure 
the native dignity, of man. In the attainment of independence were all 
their passions, their desires, and their powers engaged. The intrepidity and 
magnanimity of their armies, the wisdom and inflexible firmness of their 
Congress, the ardency of their patriotism, their unrepining patience when 
assailed by dangers and perplexed with aggravated misfortunes, have long 
and deservedly employed tbe pen of panegyric and the tongue of oratory. 

Through the whole Revolutionary conflict a consistency and systematic 
regularity were preserved, equally honorable as extraordinary. The unity 
of design and classically correct arrangement of the series of incidents which 
completed the epic story of American independence, were so wonderful, so 
well wrought, that political Hypercriticism was abashed at the mighty pro- 
duction, and forced to join her sister, Envy, in applauding the glorious 
composition. 

On the last page of Fate's eventful volume, with the raptured ken of 
prophecy, I behold Columbia's name recorded, her future honors and happi- 
ness inscribed. In the same important book, the approaching end of tyranny 
and the triumph of right and justice are written, in indelible characters. The 
struggle will soon be over ; the tottering thrones of despots will quickly fall, 
and bury their proud incumbents in their massy ruins. 

" Then Peace on earth shall hold her easy sway, 
And man forget his brother man to slay. 
To martial arts shall milder arts succeed ; 
Who blesses most shall gain th' immortal meed. 
The eye of pity shall be pained no more 
With Vict'ry's banners stained with human gore. 
Thou glorious era, come ! Hail, blessed time 
When full-orbed Freedom shall unclouded shine ; 
When the chaste Muses, cherished by her rays, 
In olive grove shall tune their sweetest lays ; 
When bounteous Ceres shall direct her car 
O'er fields now blasted by the fires of war, 
And angels view, with joy and wonder joined, 
The golden age returned to bless mankind." 



266 PATRIOTIC READER. 



COLUMBIA. 



Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise ; 

The queen of the world and the child of the skies ; 

Thy genius commands thee ; with rapture behold, 

While ages on ages thy splendoi-s unfold. 

Thy reign is the last and the noblest of time, 

Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime ; 

Let the crimes of the East ne'er encrimson thy name, 

Be freedom, and science, and virtue, thy fame. 

To conquest and slaughter let Europe aspire, 
Whelm nations in blood, and wrap cities in fire ; 
Thy heroes the rights of mankind shall defend, 
And triumph pursue them, and glory attend. 
A world is thy realm : for a world be thy laws, 
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause ; 
On freedom's broad basis thy empire shall rise, 
Extend with the main, and dissolve with the skies. 

Fair Science her gates to thy foes shall unbar, 
And the east see thy morn hide the beams of her star: 
New bards, and new sages, unrivalled shall soar 
To fame unextinguished, when time is no more ; 
To thee, the last refuge of virtue designed, 
Shall fly from all nations the best of mankind ; 
Here, grateful to heaven, with transport shall bring 
Their incense, more fragrant than odors of Bpring. 

Nor less shall thy fair ones to glory ascend, 
And genius and beauty in harmony blend ; 
The graces of form shall awake pure desire, 
And the charms of the soul ever cherish the fire ; 
Their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, 
And virtue's bright image, enstamped on the mind, 
With peace, and soft rapture, shall teach life to glow, 
And light up a smile in the aspect of woe. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 267 

Thy fleets to all regions thy power shall display, 
The nations admire, and the ocean obey ; 
Each shore to thy glory its tribute unfold, 
And the East and the South yield their spices and gold. 
As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendor shall flow, 
And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow, 
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled, 
Hush the tumult of war and give peace to the world. 

Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'erspread, 
From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed ; 
The gloom from the face of fair Heaven retired ; 
The winds ceased to murmur; the thunders expired; 
Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, 
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung, 
" Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 
The queen of the world and the child of the skies." 

Timothy Dwight. 



THEORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the 
colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this 
question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of 
taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with 
liberty ; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the 
recital of an Act of Parliament, rather than against any suffer- 
ings under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went 
to war against a Preamble. They fought seven years against 
a Declaration. They poured out treasure and their blood like 
water, in a contest in opposition to an assertion which those less 
sagacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil 
liberty would have regarded as barren phraseology or mere 
parade of words. They saw in the claim of the British Parlia- 
ment a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power ; 
they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible 
disguises, struck at it, nor did it elude either their steady eye or 



268 PATRIOTIC READER. 

their well-directed blow, till they had extirpated and destroyed 
it, to the smallest fibre. 

On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet 
afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for 
purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Eome, in the 
height of her glory, is not to be compared ; a power which 
has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her posses- 
sions and military posts; whose morning drum-beat, following 
the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth 
daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial 
airs of England. 

Daniel Webster. 



THE EXAMPLE OP OUR FOREFATHERS. 

The instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can 
nowhere be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, 
than in the Revolutionary period of America ; and especially by 
us, who sit under the tree our fathers planted, enjoy its shade, 
and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit, or gain, 
that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. 
Love of county was, in them, an absorbing principle, an undi- 
vided feeling ; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole 
country. Union was the arch on which they raised the strong 
tower of a nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied that 
would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar 
its beauty; the tongue mute that would dishonor their names 
by calculating the value of that which they deemed without 
price ! 

They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's 
memory; an example portentous to the aims of tyranny in 
every land; an example that will console, in all ages, the droop- 
ing aspirations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a 
written charter, as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But 
every day convinces us that a written charter may become 
powerless. Ignorance may misinterpret it ; ambition may assail 
and faction destroy its vital parts-, and aspiring knavery may 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 269 

at last sing its requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is 
the spirit which lives ; in this are our safety and our hope, — the 
spirit of our fathers ; and while this dwells deeply in our re- 
membrance, and its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, 
on the altar of our hearts, — while it incites us to think as they 
have thought, and do as they have done, — the honor and the 
praise will be ours, to have preserved unimpaired the rich in- 
heritance which they so nobly achieved. 

Jared Sparks. 



THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. 

Why is the experiment of an extended republic to be re- 
jected merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not 
the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid 
a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other na- 
tions, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, 
for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their 
own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the 
lesson of their own experience ? To this manly spirit posterity 
will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, 
of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre 
in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no im- 
portant step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for 
which a precedent could not be discovered, — no government 
established of which an exact model did not present itself, — 
the people of the United States might, at this moment, have 
been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided 
councils ; must, at best, have been laboring under the weight 
of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the 
rest of mankind. Happily for America, — happily, we trust, for 
the whole human race, — they pursued a new and more noble 
course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel 
in the annals of human society. They reared the fabric of 
governments which have no model on the face of the globe. 
They formed the design of a great confederacy, which it is in- 
cumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If 



270 PATRIOTIC READER. 

their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of 
them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this 
was the most difficult to be executed ; this is the work which 
has been new-modelled by the act of your Convention, and it 
is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide. 

James Madison. 



THE GOVERNMENT OP THE PEOPLE. 

The sovereignty of the people is the basis of our system. 
With the people the power resides both theoretically and practi- 
cally. The government is a determined, uncompromising democ- 
racy, administered immediately by the people, or by the people's 
responsible agents. In all the European treatises on political 
economy, and even in the state papers of the Holy Alliance, the 
welfare of the people is acknowledged to be the object of govern- 
ment. We believe so too ; but as each man's interests are safest 
in his own keeping, so, in like manner, the interests of the people 
can be best guarded by themselves. If the institution of mon- 
archy were neither tyrannical nor oppressive, it should at least 
be dispensed with as a costly superfluity. 

We believe the sovereign power should reside equally among 
the people. We acknowledge no hereditary distinctions, and we 
confer on no man prerogatives or peculiar privileges. Even the 
best services rendered the state cannot destroy this original and 
essential equality. Legislation and justice are not hereditary 
offices ; no one is born to power, no one dandled into political 
greatness. Our government, as it rests for support on reason 
and our interests, needs no protection from a nobility ; and the 
strength and ornament of the land consist in its industry and 
morality, its justice and intelligence. 

The States of Europe are all intimately allied with the Church 
and fortified by religious sanctions. We approve of the influence 
of the religious principle on public not less than on private life ; 
but wo hold religion to be an affair between each individual con- 
science and God, superior to all political institutions and inde- 
pendent of them. Christianity was neither introduced nor re- 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 271 

formed by the civil power ; and with us the modes of worship 

are in no wise prescribed by the State. 

Thus, then, the people governs, and solely ; it does not divide 

its power with a hierarchy, a nobility, or a king. The popular 

voice is all-powerful with us ; this is our oracle, and this, we 

acknowledge, is the voice of God. Invention is solitary, but 

who shall judge of its results? Inquiry may pursue truth 

apart, but who shall decide if truth be overtaken ? There is no 

safe criterion of opinion but the careful exercise of the public 

judgment; and in the science of government, as elsewhere, the 

deliberate convictions of mankind, reasoning on the cause of 

their own happiness, their own wants and interests, are the 

surest revelations of political truth. 

George Bancroft. 



NECESSITY OP THE UNION. 

Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of 
government; and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and 
however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their 
natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers. 

It is well worthy of consideration, therefore, whether it would 
conduce more to the interest of the people of America that they 
should, to all general purposes, be one nation, under one federal 
government, than that they should divide themselves into sepa- 
rate confederacies, and give to the head of each the same kind 
of powers which they are advised to place in one national gov- 
ernment. 

It is worthy of remark, that not only the first but every suc- 
ceeding Congress, as well as the late Convention, have invariably 
joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America 
depends on its Union. 

To preserve and perpetuate the Union was the great object of 
the people in forming that Convention ; and it is also the great 
object of the plan which the Convention has advised them to 
adopt. 



272 PATRIOTIC READER. 

With what propriety, therefore, or for what good purposes, 
are attempts at this particular period made by some men to de- 
preciate the importance of the Union ? or why is it suggested 
that three or four confederacies would be better than one ? 

I am persuaded in my own mind, that the people have always 
thought right on this subject, and that their universal and uni- 
form attachment to the cause of the Union rests on great and 
weighty reasons. 

Those persons who promote the idea of substituting a number 
of distinct confederacies, in the room of the plan of the Conven- 
tion, seem clearly to foresee that the rejection of it would put 
the continuance of the Union in the utmost jeopardy. 

That certainly would be the case ; and I sincerely wish that 
it may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that when- 
ever the dissolution of the Union arrives, America will have 
reason to exclaim, in the words of the poet, " Farewell, a long 
farewell, to all my greatness !" 

John Jat. (1788.) 



THE NATURE OP THE UNION. 

Our fathers were, by every circumstance surrounding their 
homes, by their relations to each other, and by their own ex- 
pressed assent, one people ; separated, it is true, into thirteen 
several municipal organizations, having in many respects diverse 
interests, but still not the less in mind, in heart, and in destiny, 
one. 

You and I are descendants of that people ; and I ask you if it 
is not true — if you do not in your hearts know it to be true — 
that when, in the incipient stages of the revolution through 
which they were called to struggle, they magnanimously put 
aside all local differences and jealousies, and with one impulse 
combined their efforts, their fortunes, their lives, their all, against 
fearful odds, for the redress of their common grievances at the 
hands of the mother-country, and for the independence which 
they resolved to achieve, they evoked an already-existing feeling 
of unity, and did, in the very essence of the term, form a full, 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 273 

unreserved, and practical union of the people, intended by them- 
selves to be perpetual ? Did they not, as perfectly as any people 
ever did, constitute and declare themselves a single and undi- 
vided nation ? Is there in all history an instance of such a union 
among a people who did not feel themselves to be, in every im- 
portant particular, the same people? Why, even before the 
Union was a fact in history, the feeling in the North in refer- 
ence to it was expressed by James Otis, one of the leading 
patriots of Massachusetts, in the Convention of 1765, in the hope 
that a union would be formed which should " knit and work to- 
gether into the very blood and bones of the original system, every 
region, as fast as settled;" and from distant South Carolina, great- 
hearted Christopher Gadsden answered back, " There ought to be 
no New-England man, no New-Yorker, known on the continent, 
but all- of us Americans." And in the very hour of the Union's 
birth-throes, Patrick Henry flashed upon the Congress of 1774 
these lightning words : " All America is thrown into one mass. 
Where are your landmarks, — your boundaries of colonies ? They 
are all thrown down. The distinctions between Virginians, Penn- 
sylvanians, New-Yorkers, and New-Englanders are no more. I 
am not a Yirginian, but an American." And when, after the 
Union was a recorded and mighty fact in history, the united 
people, through their Congress, organized the first form of gov- 
ernment for the new-born nation, they solemnly wrote down in 
the articles of their confederation, "The Union shall be per- 
petual." 

Charles Daniel Drake. (1861.) 



THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 

Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are 
such, because I think a general government necessary for us, 
and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing 
to the people, if well administered ; and I believe, further, that 
this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and 
can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, 
when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic 
18 



274 PATRIOTIC READER. 

government, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, whether 
any other convention we can obtain, may be able to make a 
better constitution. For when j^ou assemble a number of men, 
to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably 
assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, 
their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish 
views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be 
expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to lind this system 
approaching so near to perfection as it does ; and I think it will 
astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear 
that our counsels are confounded, like those of the builders of 
Babel, and that our States are on the point of separation, only 
to meet, hereafter, for the purpose of cutting one another's 
throats. 

Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no 
better, and because I am not sure that this is not the best. The 
opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. 
I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within 
these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every 
one of us, in returning to his constituents, were to report the 
objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in 
support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, 
and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages 
resulting naturally in our favor, among foreign nations, as well 
as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity. Much 
of the strength and efficacy of airy government, in procuring 
and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the 
general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as 
of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, 
that for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake 
of our posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recom- 
mending this Constitution, wherever our influence may extend, 
and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of 

having it well administered. 

Benjamin Franklin. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 275 



A REPUBLIC THE STRONGEST GOVERNMENT. 

(Extract from First Inaugural Address after the bitter Presidential canvass 
in 1800.) 

The contest being now decided by tbe voice of tbe nation, 
and announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all 
will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, 
and unite in common efforts for the common good. 

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one 
mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and 
affection without which liberty and even life itself are but 
dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from 
our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long 
bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance 
a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as 
bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convul- 
sions of the ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of in- 
furiated man, seeking, through blood and slaughter, his long-lost 
liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows 
should reach even this distant and peaceful shore ; that this 
should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, 
and should divide opinions as to measures of safety : but, every 
difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. 

"We have called, by different names, brethren of the same prin- 
ciple. We are all republicans : we are all federalists. If there 
be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or 
to change its republican form, let them stand, undisturbed, as 
monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be 
tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, 
that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot 
be strong, — that this government is not strong enough. But 
would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experi- 
ment, abandon a government which has, so far, kept us free 
and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this govern- 
ment, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to 
preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, to 
be the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one 
where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the stand- 



276 PATRIOTIC READER. 

ard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as 
his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot 
be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be 
trusted with the government of others ? Let history answer 
this question. Thomas Jefferson. 



AMERICAN LIBERTY IS REASONABLE AND JUST. 

To the Anglo-Saxon mind, liberty is not apt to be the enthu- 
siast's mountain nymph, with cheeks wet with morning dew, 
and clear eyes that mirror the heavens ; but rather is she an 
old dowager lady, fatly invested in commerce and manufactures, 
and peevishly fearful that enthusia'sm will reduce her establish- 
ment, and panics cut off her dividends. 

Our political institutions, again, are but the body, of which 
liberty is the soul ; their preservation depends upon their being 
continually inspired by the light and heat of the sentiment and 
idea whence they sprung, and when we timorously suspend, ac- 
cording to the latest political fashion, the truest and dearest 
maxims of our freedom to the call of expediency or threat of 
passion ; when we convert politics into a mere game of interest, 
unhallowed by a single great or unselfish principle, we may be 
sure that our worst passions are busy "forging our fetters;" 
that we are proposing all those intricate problems which red 
republicanism so swiftly solves, and giving manifest destiny per- 
tinent hints, to shout new anthems of atheism over victorious 
rapine. 

The liberty which our fathers planted, and for which they 
sturdily contended, and under which they grandly conquered, is 
a rational, and temperate, but brave and unyielding freedom ; 
the august mother of institutions ; the hardy nurse of enter- 
prise ; the sworn ally of justice and order ; a liberty that lifts 
her awful and rebuking face equally upon the cowards who 
would sell, and the braggarts who would pervert, her precious 
gifts of rights and obligations. 

This liberty we are solemnly bound, at all hazards, to protect ; 
at any sacrifice to preserve ; and by all just means to extend, 
against the unbridled excesses of that ugly and brazen hag, 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 277 

originally scorned and detested by those who unwisely gave 
her infancy a home, but which now, in her enormous growth 
and favored deformity, reels with blood-shot eyes, and dishev- 
elled tresses, and words of unshamed slavishness, into halls where 
Liberty should sit enthroned. 

Edwin Percy Whipple. 



AMERICAN RESPONSIBILITY MEASURED. 

When we reflect on what has been, and is, how is it possible 
not to feel a profound sense of the responsibleness of this re- 
public to all future ages! What vast motives press upon us 
for lofty efforts ! What brilliant prospects invite our enthusi- 
asm ! What solemn warnings at once demand our vigilance and 
moderate our confidence ! 

The Old World has already revealed to us, in its unsealed 
books, the beginning and end of all its own marvellous struggles 
in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece, " the land of 
scholars and the nurse of arms," where sister republics, in fair 
procession, chanted the praises of liberty and the gods, where 
and what is she ? For two thousand years the oppressor has 
bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. 

The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of 
a ruthless soldiery ; the fragments of her columns, and her 
palaces, are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when 
the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Ther- 
mopylae and Marathon ; and the tide of her triumph rolled back 
upon the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. 
She fell by the hands of her own people. The man of Mace- 
donia did not the work of destruction. It was already done, by 
her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. 

Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising 
and setting sun, where and what is she ? The Eternal City yet 
remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, 
venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the com- 
posure of death. The Malaria has but travelled in the paths 
worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have 



278 PATRIOTIC READER. 

mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was 
upon her vitals before Caesar had crossed the Kubicon. The 
Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the North, com- 
pleted only what was already begun at home. Eomans betrayed 
Rome. The legions were bought and sold, but the people offered 
the tribute-money. 

And where are the republics of modern times, which clustered 
round immortal Italy? Venice and Genoa exist but in name. 
The Alps, indeed, look down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss 
in their native fastnesses; but the guarantee of their freedom 
is in their weakness, and not in their strength. The mountains 
are not easily crossed, and the valleys are not easily retained. 
When the invader comes, he moves like an avalanche, carrying 
destruction in his path. The peasantry sink before him. The 
country is too poor for plunder, and too rough for valuable con- 
quest. Nature presents her eternal barriers, on every side, to 
check the wantonness of ambition ; and Switzerland remains, 
with her simple institutions, a military road to fairer climates, 
scarcely worth a permanent possession, and protected by the 
jealousy of her neighbors. 

"We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last, ex- 
periment of self-government by the people. We have begun it 
under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in 
the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the 
oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been en- 
feebled by the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we 
are, we have been from the beginning, — simple, hardy, intel- 
ligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respect. The 
Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. 

Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees 
of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products 
and many means of independence. The government is mild. 
The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may 
reach, every home. What fairer prospect of success could be 
presented? What means more adequate- to accomplish the 
sublime end ? What more is necessary than for the people to 
preserve what they themselves have created ? 

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It 
has already ascended the Andes and snuffed the breezes of both 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 279 

oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and 
warmed the sunny plains of France and the low lands of Hol- 
land. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the North, 
and, moving onward to the South, has opened to Greece the 
lessons of her better days. 

Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray 
herself? that she is to be added to the catalogue of republics. 
the inscription upon whose ruins is, " They were, but they are 
not" ? Forbid it, my countrymen ! forbid it, Heaven ! 

I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by 
the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are 
and all you hope to be, resist every project of disunion, resist 
every encroachment upon your liberties, resist every attempt to 
fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or ex- 
tinguish your s} T stem of public instruction. 

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you 
are, whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, 
which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never 
comes too soon, if necessary in defence of the liberties of your 
country. 

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, 
and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in 
sorrow to the grave with the recollection that j^ou have lived in 
vain ! May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation 
of slaves ! 

No, I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far 
brighter visions. We who are now assembled here must soon 
be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our 
departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the 
theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs ! May he who, 
at the distance of another century, shall stand hei'e to celebrate 
this day, still look upon a free, happy, and virtuous people! May 
he have reason to exult as we do! May he. with all the enthu- 
siasm of truth, as well as of poetry, exclaim that here is still his 
country ! — 

" Zealous, yet modest ; innocent, though free ; 
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms ; 
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms." 

Joseph Story. 



280 PATRIOTIC REAI>ER. 



AMERICAN LIBERTY ON A PERMANENT BASIS. 

The election of a chief magistrate by the mass of the people 
of an extensive community was, to the most enlightened nations 
of antiquity, an impossibility. Destitute of the art of printing, 
they could not have introduced the representative principle into 
their political systems even if they had understood it. In the 
very nature of things, that principle can only be coextensive with 
popular intelligence. In this respect the art of printing, more 
than any invention since the creation of man, is destined to 
change and elevate the political condition of society. It has 
given a new impulse to the energies of the human mind, and 
opens up new and brilliant destinies to modern republics, which 
were utterly unattainable by the ancients. The existence of a 
country population, scattered over a vast extent of territory, 
as intelligent as the population of the cities, is a phenomenon 
which was utterly and necessarily unknown to the free states 
of antiquity. All the intelligence which controlled the destiny 
and upheld the dominion of republican Rome was confined to 
the walls of the great city. Even when her dominion extended 
beyond Italy, to the utmost known limits of the inhabited world, 
the city was the exclusive seat both of intelligence and empire. 
Without the art of printing, and the consequent advantages of 
a free press, that habitual and incessant action of mind upon 
mind, which is essential to all human improvement, could no 
more exist among a numerous scattered population, than the 
commerce of disconnected continents could traverse the ocean 
without the arts of navigation. Here, then, is the source of our 
superiority and our just pride as a nation. The statesmen of the 
remotest extremes of the Union can converse together like the 
philosophers of Athens in the same portico, or the politicians of 
Rome in the same forum. Distance is overcome, and the citi- 
zens of Georgia and Maine can be brought to co-operate in the 
same great object, with as perfect a community of views and 
feelings as actuated the tribes of Rome in the assemblies of the 
people. 

It is obvious that liberty has a more extensive and durable 
foundation in the United States than it ever has had in any 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OP AMERICANS. 281 

other age or country. By the representative principle, a princi- 
ple unknown and impracticable among the ancients, the whole 
mass of society is brought to operate in constraining the action 
of power and in the conservation of liberty. 

George McDuffie. 



AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP AND ITS DUTIES. 

It behooves us to look our perils and difficulties, such as they 
are, in the face. Then, with the exercise of candor, calmness, 
and fortitude, being able to comprehend fully their character 
and extent, let us profit by the teachings of almost every page 
in our annals, that any defects, under our existing system, have 
resulted more from the manner of administering it than from 
its substance or form. 

We less need new laws, new institutions, or new powers, than 
we need, on all occasions, at all times, and in all places, the 
requisite intelligence concerning the true spirit of our present 
ones ; the high moral courage, under every hazard and against 
every offender, to execute with fidelity the authority already 
possessed ; and the manly independence to abandon all supine- 
ness, irresolution, vacillation, and time-serving pusillanimity, 
and enforce our present mild system with that uniformity and 
steady vigor, throughout, which alone can supply the place of 
the greater severity of less free institutions. 

To arm and encourage us in renewed efforts to accomplish 
everything on this subject which is desirable, our history con- 
stantly points her finger to a most efficient resource, and indeed 
to the only elixir, to secure a long life to any popular govern- 
ment, in increased attention to useful education and sound 
morals, with the wise description of equal measures and just 
practices they inculcate, on every leaf of recorded time. Be- 
fore their alliance, the spirit of misrule will always, in time, 
stand rebuked, and those who worship at the shrine of unhal- 
lowed ambition must quail. 

Storms, in the political atmosphere, may occasionally happen, 
by the encroachments of usurpers, the corruption or intrigues 



282 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of demagogues, or in the expiring agonies of faction, or by the 
sudden fury of popular frenzy; but, with the restraints and salu- 
tary influences of the allies before described, these storms will 
purify as healthfully as they often do in the physical world, 
and cause the tree of liberty, instead of falling, to strike its roots 
deeper. In this struggle the enlightened and moral possess also 
a power, auxiliary and strong, in the spirit of the age, which is 
not only with them, but onward, in everything to ameliorate or 
improve. 

When the struggle assumes the form of a contest with power, 
in all its subtlety, or with undermining and corrupting w T ealth, 
as it sometimes may, rather than with turbulence, sedition, or 
open aggression by the needy and desperate, it will be indis- 
pensable to employ still greater diligence; to cherish earnest- 
ness of purpose, resoluteness in conduct; to apply hard and 
constant blows to real abuses, rather than milk-and-water reme- 
dies, and encourage not only bold, free, and original thinking, 
but determined action. 

In such a cause, our fathers were men whose hearts were not 
accustomed to fail them through fear, however formidable the 
obstacles. Some of them were companions of Cromwell, and 
imbued deeply with his spirit and iron decision of character, 
in whatever they deemed right. . . . We are not, it is trusted, 
such degenerate descendants as to prove recreant, and fail to 
defend, with gallantry and firmness as unflinching, all which 
we have either derived from them, or since added to the rich 
inheritance. 

At such a crisis, therefore, and iu such a cause, yielding to 
neither consternation nor despair, may we not all profit by the 
vehement exhortations of Cicero to Atticus ? — " If you are asleep, 
awake ; if you are standing, move ; if you are moving, run ; if 
you are running, fly." 

All these considerations warn us, the gravestones of almost 
every former republic warn us, that a high standard of moral 
rectitude, as well as of intelligence, is quite as indispensable to 
communities, in their public doings, as to individuals, if they 
would escape from either degeneracy or disgrace. 

Lkvi Woodbury. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 283 



AMERICA'S TRUE GREATNESS. 

At present we behold only the rising of our sun of empire, — 
only the fair seeds and beginnings of a great nation. Whether 
that glowing orb shall attain to a meridian height, or fall sud- 
denly from its glorious sphere ; whether those prolific seeds 
shall mature into autumnal ripeness, or shall perish, yielding no 
harvest, depends on God's will and providence. But God's will 
and providence operate not by casualty or caprice, but by fixed 
and revealed laws. If we would secure the greatness set before 
us, we must find the way which those laws indicate, and keep 
within it. That way is new and all untried. We departed early 
— we departed at the beginning — from the beaten track of 
national ambition. Our lot was cast in an age of revolution, — 
a revolution which was to bring all mankind from a state of 
servitude to the exercise of self-government, — from under the 
tyranny of physical force to the gentle sway of opinion, — from 
under subjection to matter to dominion over nature. 

It was ours to lead the way, — to take up the cross of republi- 
canism and bear it before the nations, to fight its earliest battles, 
to enjoy its earliest triumphs, to illustrate its purifying and 
elevating virtues, and by our courage and resolution, our mod- 
eration and our magnanimity, to cheer and sustain its future 
followers through the baptism of blood and the martyrdom of 
fire. A mission so noble and benevolent demands a generous 
and self-denying enthusiasm. Our greatness is to be won by 
beneficence without ambition. We are in danger of losing that 
holy zeal. We are surrounded by temptations. Our dwellings 
become palaces, and our villages are transformed, as if by magic, 
into great cities. Fugitives from famine, and oppression, and the 
sword, crowd our shores, and proclaim to us that we alone are 
free, and great, and happy. Our empire enlarges. The continent 
and its islands seem ready to fall within our grasp, and more 
than even fabulous wealth opens under our feet. No public 
virtue can withstand, none ever encountered, such seductions as 
these. Our own virtue and moderation must be renewed and 
fortified, under circumstances so new and peculiar. 

Where shall we seek the influence adequate to a task so 



284 PATRIOTIC READER. 

arduous as this? Shall we invoke the press and the pulpit? 
They only reflect the actual condition of the public morals, and 
cannot change them. Shall we resort to the executive author- 
ity ? The time has passed when it could compose and modify 
the political elements around it. Shall we go to the Senate? 
Conspiracies, seditions, and corruptions in all free countries have 
begun there. Where, then, shall we go to find an agency tbat 
can uphold and renovate declining public virtue ? "Where should 
we go but there, where all republican virtue begins and must 
end ? where the Promethean fire is ever to be rekindled until it 
shall finally expire ? where motives are formed and passions 
disciplined ? To the domestic fireside and humbler school, 
where the American citizen is trained. Instruct him there, that 
it will not be enough that he can claim for his country Lacedae- 
monian heroism, but that more than Spartan valor and more 
than Roman magnificence is required of her. Go, then, ye 
laborers in a noble cause ; gather the young Catholic and the 
young Protestant alike into the nursery of freedom, and teach 
them there, that, although religion has many and different 
shrines on which may be made the offering of a " broken spirit" 
which G-od will not despise, yet that their country has appointed 
only one altar and one sacrifice for all her sons, and that ambi- 
tion and avarice must be slain on that altar, for it is consecrated 
to humanity. 

William Henry Seward. 



AMERICA'S INTRINSIC STRENGTH. 

The enemies of popular right and power have been pointing 
to the dreadful proof which is afforded in America, that an ex- 
tended suffrage is a thing to be shunned, as the most calamitous 
thing possible to a country. I will not refer to the speeches 
that have dealt with this question in this manner, or to the 
newspapers which have so treated it. I believe now, that a 
great many people in this country are beginning to see that 
those who have been misleading them, for the last two or three 
years, have been profoundly dishonest or profoundly ignorant. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMEEICANS. 285 

If I am to give my opinion upon it, I should say, that which 
has taken place in America within the last three years, affords 
the most triumphant answer to charges of this kind. Let us 
see the government of the United States. They have a suf- 
frage which is almost what here would be called a manhood 
suffrage. There are frequent elections, vote by ballot, and ten 
thousand, twenty thousand, and one hundred thousand persons 
vote at an election. Will anybody deny that the government 
at Washington, as regards its own people, is the strongest 
government in the world, at this hour? And for this simple 
reason : because it is based on the will, and the good will, of an 
instructed people. Look at its power ! I am not now discuss- 
ing why it is, or the cause which is developing this power ; 
but power is the thing which men regard, in these old countries, 
and which they ascribe mainly to European institutions; but 
look at the power which the United States have developed ! 
They have brought more men into the field, they have built 
more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources, 
than any nation in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look 
at the order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, 
as you see by the papers, fifty thousand, or one hundred thou- 
sand, or two hundred and fifty thousand persons vote, in a 
given State, with less disorder than you have seen lately in 
three of the smallest boroughs in England. Look at their 
industry. Notwithstanding this terrific struggle, their agri- 
culture, their manufactures and commerce, proceed with an 
uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a President, chosen, 
it is true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but 
from the people, and the one whose truthfulness and spotless 
honor have claimed him universal praise ; and now the country 
that has been vilified through half the organs "of the press in 
England, during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, 
as an example to be shunned, by many of your statesmen, — 
that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home 
for multitudes, flying from the burdens and the neglect of the 
old governments of Europe; and when this mortal strife is 
over, — when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when 
the Union is cemented afresh, — for I would say, in the language 
of one of our own poets addressing his country, — 



286 PATRIOTIC READER. 

" The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, 
In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away," — 

then, Europe and England may learn that an instructed democ- 
racy is the surest foundation of government, and that education 
and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true 
happiness among any people. 

John Bright. (1863.) 



AMERICA WITHOUT A PARALLEL. 

In all the attributes of a great, happy, and nourishing peo- 
ple, we stand without a parallel in the world. Abroad, we en- 
joy the respect and, with scarcely an exception, the friendship 
of every nation ; at home, while our government quietly, but 
efficiently, performs the sole legitimate end of political institu- 
tions, in doing the gi-eatest good to the greatest number, we 
present an aggregate of human prosperity surely not elsewhere 
to be found. 

How imperious, then, is the obligation imposed upon every 
citizen, in his own sphere of action, whether limited or extended, 
to exert himself in perpetuating a condition of things so singu- 
larly happy ! All the lessons of history and experience must 
be lost upon us, if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar 
advantages Ave happen to possess. Position and climate, and 
the bounteous resources that nature has scattered with so liberal 
a hand, — even the diffused intelligence and elevated character 
of our people, — will avail us nothing, if we fail sacredly to up- 
hold those political institutions that were wisely and deliberately 
formed witb reference to every circumstance that could preserve, 
or might endanger, the blessings we enjoy. The thoughtful 
Cramers of our Constitution legislated for our country as they 
found it. Looking upon it with the eyes of statesmen and of 
patriots, they saw all the sources of rapid and wonderful pros- 
perity ; but they saw, also, that various habits, opinions, and 
institutions, peculiar to the various portions of so vast a region, 
were deeply fixed. Distinct Sovereignties were in actual exist- 
ence, whose coi-dial union was essential to the welfare and happi- 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 287 

ness of all. Between many of them there Avas, at least to some 
extent, a real diversity of interests, liable to be exaggerated 
through sinister designs ; they differed in size, in population, 
in wealth, and in actual and prospective resources and power ; 
they varied in the character of their industry and staple pro- 
ductions ; and in some existed domestic institutions which, un- 
wisely disturbed, might endanger the harmony of the whole. 
Most carefully were all these circumstances weighed, and the 
foundations of the new government laid upon principles of 
reciprocal concession and equitable compromise. 

The jealousies which the smaller States might entertain of 
the power of the rest were allayed by a rule of representation 
confessedly unequal at the time, and designed forever to remain 
so. A natural fear that the broad scope of general legislation 
might bear upon and unwisely control particular interests, was 
counteracted by limits strictly drawn around the action of the 
Federal authority ; and to the people, and to the States, was left, 
unimpaired, their sovereign power over the innumerable subjects 
embraced in the internal government of a just republic, except- 
ing such only as necessarily appertain to the concerns of the 
whole Confederacy, or its intercourse, as a united community, 
with the other nations of the world. 

Martin Van Buren. 



AMERICA IN THE FRONT RANK OP NATIONS. 

This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institu- 
tions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours ; ours to enjoy, 
ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and gen- 
erations to come, hold us responsible for this sacred trust. Our 
fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal 
voices ; posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future ; 
the world turns hither its solicitous eyes, — all, all conjure us 
to act wisely, and faithfully, in the relation which we sustain. 
"We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us ; but by 
virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every 
good principle and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy 
the blessing through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to 



288 PATRIOTIC READER. 

our children. Let us feel deeply how much, of what wo are 
and what we possess, we owe to this liberty and these insti- 
tutions of government. 

Nature has, indeed, given us a soil which yields bounteously 
to the hands of industry; the might}* and fruitful ocean is 
before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and vigor. 
But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man with- 
out society, without knowledge, without morals, without re- 
ligious culture? And how can these be enjoyed, in all their 
extent and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise 
institutions and a free government ? 

Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of 
us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every 
moment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition 
of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the 
benefits of this liberty, and these institutions. Let us, then, 
acknowledge the blessing; let us feel it deeply and powerfully; 
let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain 
and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have 
been shed in vain ; the great hope of posterity, let it not be 
blasted. 

The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world 
around us, a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often and 
dwell on too long, cannot be altogether omitted here. Neither 
individuals nor nations can perform their part well until they 
understand and feel its importance, and comprehend and justly 
appreciate all the duties belonging to it, It is not to inflate 
national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling of self- 
importance ; but it is that we may judge justly of our situation, 
and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration 
of our position and our character among the nations of the 
earth. 

It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against 
the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era com- 
mences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free 
representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by im- 
proved systems of national intercourse, by a newly awakened 
and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion 
of knowledge thi-ough the community, such as has been be- 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMBRICAN8. 289 

fore altogether unknown and unheard of. America, America, 
our country, our own dear and native land, is inseparably con- 
nected, last hound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great 
interests. If they fall, we fall with them; it' they stand, it 
will be because we have; upheld them. 

Let us contemplate, then, this connection which Kinds the 
prosperity of others to our own ; and let us manfully discharge 
all the duties which it imposes. It' we cherish the virtues and 
the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assisl us to canyon 
the work- of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious 
omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own 
firmament now shines brightly upon our path. Washington 
is in the clear upper sky. Those other stars have now joined 
the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and 
the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination 
let us walk the course of lite, and a! its close devoutly com- 
mend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to 

the Divine Benignity. 

Daniel Webster. 



AMERICA THE COLOSSUS OP THE NATIONS. 

Two ideas there are which, above all others, elevate and dig- 
nify a race, — the idea of God and country. How imperishable 
is the idea of counl ry ! How does it live within and ennoble I he 
heart in spite of persecution and trials, difficulties and dangers! 
After I wo thousand years of wandering, it makes the Jew a 
sharer in the glory of the prophets, the law-givers, the warriors 
and poets who lived in the morning of time. How does it 
toughen every fibre of an Englishman's frame, and imbue tin; 
spirit of a Frenchman with Napoleonic enthusiasm ! How does 
the German carry with him even the ' ; old house-furniture of 
the Rhine," surround himself with the sweet and tender associa- 
tions of "Fatherland;" and wheresoever he may he, the great 
names of German history shine like stars in tin; heaven above 
him! And the [rishman, though the political existence of his 
country is merged in a kingdom whose rule he may abhor, yet 
still do the chords of his heart vibrate responsive to the tones 
19 



290 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of the harp of Erin, and the lowly shamrock is dearer to his 
soul than the fame-crowning laurel, the love-breathing myrtle, 
or storm-daring pine. 

What is our country? Not alone the land and the sea, the 
lakes and rivers, and valleys and mountains ; not alone the 
people, their customs and laws ; not alone the memories of the 
past, the hopes of the future; it is something more than all 
these combined. It is a divine abstraction. You cannot tell 
what it is, but let its flag rustle above your head, you feel its 
living presence in your hearts. They tell us that our country 
must die ; that the sun and the stars will look down upon the 
great republic no more ; that already the black eagles of des- 
potism are gathering in our political sky ; that even now kings 
and emperors are casting lots for the garments of our national 
glory. It shall not be ! Not yet, not yet shall the nations lay 
the bleeding corpse of our country in the tomb ! If they could, 
angels would roll the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre ! 
It would burst the cerements of the grave and come forth a 
living presence, " redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled." Not 
yet, not yet shall the republic die ! The heavens are not dark- 
ened, the stones are not rent. It shall live, — it shall live, the 
embodiment of the power and majesty of the people. Baptized 
anew, it shall stand a thousand years to come, the colossus of the 
nations, — its feet upon the continents, its sceptre over the seas, 

its forehead among the stars. 

Newton Booth. 



AMERICA AN AGGREGATE OF NATIONS. 

Giant aggregate of nations, glorious whole, of glorious parts, 
Unto endless generations live united, hands and hearts ! 
Be it storm or summer weather, peaceful calm or battle jar, 
Stand in beauteous strength together, sister States, as now ye are! 

Every petty class-dissension, heal it up as quick as thought; 
Every paltry place-pretension, crush it as a thing of naught ; 
Let no narrow private treason your great onward progress bar, 
But remain, in right and reason, sister States, as now ye are! 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 291 

Fling away absurd ambition ! people, leave that toy to kings ; 
Envy, jealousy, suspicion, — be above such grovelling things : 
In each other's joys delighted, all your hate be — joys of war, 
And by all means keep united, sister States, as now ye are ! 

Were I but some scornful stranger, still my counsel would be just; 
Break the band and all is danger, mutual fear and dark distrust ; 
But you know me for a brother, and a friend who speaks from far, 
Be as one, then, with each other, sister States, as now ye are ! 

If it seems a thing unholy, Freedom's soil by slaves to till, 
Yet be just! and sagely, slowly, nobly cure that ancient ill: 
Slowly, — haste is fatal ever; nobly, — lest good faith ye mar ; 
Sagely, — not in wrath, to sever, sister States, as now ye are ! 

Charmed with your commingled beauty, England sends the sig- 
nal round, 

"Every man must do his duty" to redeem from bonds the 
bound ! 

Then, indeed, your banner's brightness, shining clear from every 
star, 

Shall proclaim your uprightness, sister States, as now ye are ! 

So a peerless constellation may those stars forever blaze ! 
Three-and-ten times threefold nation, go ahead in power and 



prais 



Like the many-breasted goddess, throned on her Ephesian car, 
Be — one heart, in many bodies ! sister States, as now ye are ! 

Martin Farquhar Ttjpper. 



THE AMERICAN PATRIOT'S HOPE. 

Our republic has long been a theme of speculation among 
the savans of Europe. They profess to have cast its horo- 
scope ; and fifty years was fixed upon by many as the utmost 
limit of its duration. But those years passed by, and beheld 
us a united and happy people; our political atmosjmere agi- 



292 PATRIOTIC READER. 

tated by no storm, and scarce a cloud to obscure the serenity 
of our horizon; all of the present was prosperity, all of the 

future was hope. 

True, upon the day of that anniversary two venerable fathers 
of our freedom and of our country fell; but they sank calmly 
to rest, in the maturity of years and the fulness of time, and 
their simultaneous departure, on that day of jubilee, for another 
and a better world, was hailed by our nation as a propitious 
sign, sent to us from heaven. 

Wandering the othor day in the alcoves of the library, I 
accidentally opened a volume containing the orations delivered 
by many distinguished men on that solemn occasion, and I 
noted some expressions of a few who now sit in this hall, 
which are deep-fraught with the then prevailing, 1 may say, 
universal feeling. It is inquired by one, "Is this the etfect of 
accident, or blind chance, or has G-od, who holds in his hands 
the destiny of nations and of men, designed these things as an 
evidence of the permanence and perpetuity of our institutions?" 
Another says, "Is it not stamped with the seal of divinity?" 
And a third, descanting on the prospects, bright and glorious, 
which opened on our beloved country, says, "Auspicious omens 
cheer us !" 

Yet it would have required but a tinge of superstitious gloom 
to have drawn from that event darker forebodings of that 
which was to come. In our primitive wilds, where the order 
of nature is unbroken by the hand of man, there, where majes- 
tic trees arise, spread forth their branches, live out their age, 
and decline, sometimes will a patriarchal plant, which has stood 
for centuries the winds and storms, fall, when no breeze agitates 
a leaf of the trees that surround it. And when, in the calm 
stillness of a summer's noon, the solitary woodsman bears, on 
either hand, the heavy crash of huge, branchless trunks, fall- 
ing by their own weight to the earth whence they sprung, — 
prescient of the future, he foresees the whirlwind at hand, 
which shall sweej) through the forest, break ils strongest stems, 
upturn ils deepest roots, and strew in the dust its tallest, 
proudest heads. 

Bui I am none of those who indulge in gloomy anticipa- 
tion. I do not despair of the republic. My trust is strong that 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 293 

the gallant ship, in which all our hopes are embarked, will 
yet outride the storm ; saved alike from the breakers and bil- 
lows of disunion, and the greedy whirlpool, the all-engulfing 
maelstrom of executive power ; that, unbroken, if not unharmed, 
she may pursue her prosperous voyage far down the stream 
of time ; and that the banner of our country, which now waves 
over us so proudly, will still float in triumph, borne on the 
wings of heaven, fanned by the breath of fame, every stripe 
bright and unsullied, every star fixed in its sphere, ages after 
each of us, now here, shall have ceased to gaze on its majestic 
folds forever. 

Thomas Ewing. 



AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE WORLD. 

What, it is asked, has this nation done to repay the world for 
the benefits we have received from others? Is it nothing for 
the universal good of mankind to have carried into" successful 
operation a system of self-government, uniting personal liberty, 
freedom of opinion, and equality of rights, with national power 
and dignity, such as had never before existed only in the Utopian 
dreams of philosophers ? Is it nothing, in moral science, to have 
anticipated, in sober reality, numerous plans of reform in civil 
and criminal jurisprudence, which are but now received as plau- 
sible theories by the politicians and economists of Europe ? Is 
it nothing to have been able to call forth, on every emergency, 
either in war or peace, a body of talents always equal to the 
difficulty ? Is it nothing to have, in less than half a century, 
exceedingly improved the sciences of political economy, of law, 
and of medicine, with all their auxiliary branches ; to have en- 
riched human knowledge by the accumulation of a great mass 
of useful facts and observations ; and to have augmented the 
power and the comforts of civilized man by miracles of mechani- 
cal invention ? Is it nothing to have given the world examples 
of disinterested patriotism, of political wisdom, of public virtue, 
of learning, eloquence, and valor, never exerted save for some 
praiseworthy end? it is sufficient to have briefly suggested 



294 PATRIOTIC READER. 

these considerations ; every mind would anticipate me in filling 
up the details. 

No, Land of Liberty ! thy children have no cause to blush for 
thee. What though the arts have reared few monuments among 
us, and scarce a trace of the Muse's footstep is found in the 
paths of our forests, or along the banks of our rivers, yet our 
soil has been consecrated by the blood of heroes, and by great 
and holy deeds of peace. Its wide extent has become one vast 
temple and hallowed asylum, sanctified by the prayers and bless- 
ings of the persecuted of every sect and the wretched of all 
nations. Land of refuge, land of benedictions ! Those prayers 
still arise and they still are heard : " May peace be within thy 
walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces !" " May there be 
no decay, no leading into captivity, and no complaining in thy 
streets !" " May truth flourish out of the earth, and righteous- 
ness look down from heaven !" 

Gulian Crommelin Verplanck. 



AMERICAN ENTERPRISE OLDER THAN INDE- 
PENDENCE. 

(Address before Parliament, 1775.) 

For some time past, Mr. Speaker, the Old World has been fed 
from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would have 
been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, if Amer- 
ica, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put 
the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its 
exhausted parent. Turning from the agricultural resources of 
the colonies, consider the wealth which they have drawn from 
the sea, by their fisheries. Pray, sir, what in the world is equal 
to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in 
which the people of New England have of late carried on the 
whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling 
mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest 
frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits; whilst we 
are looking for them beneath the Arctic Circle, we hear that 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 295 

they have pierced into the opposite region of Polar cold, — that 
they are at the Antipodes, and engaged under the frozen Ser- 
pent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote 
and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is 
but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious 
industry. 

Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than 
the accumulated winter of both the Poles. We know that 
whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on 
the coast of Africa, others run the longitude and pursue their 
gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is 
vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to then- 
toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of 
France, nor the dexterity and firm sagacity of English enter- 
prise, ever carried this most perilous mode of industry to the 
extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a 
people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet 
hardened into the bone of manhood. 

When I contemplate these things ; that the colonies owe little 
or nothing to any care of ours ; that they are not squeezed into 
this happy form by the constraints of a watchful and suspicious 
government ; but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a 
generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to per- 
fection, I feel all the pride of power sink and die away within 
me. My rigor relents ! I pardon something to the spirit of 
liberty ! 

John Wilkes. 



THE AMERICAN UNION A GEOGRAPHICAL 
NECESSITY. 

(Extract from Address at Randolph Macon College, Virginia, at Com- 
mencement, 1854.) 

The name " American," itself, is sufficient to inspire within 
the bosom of every one, who so proudly claims it, a holy zeal to 
preserve forever the endearing epithet. This Union must and 
will be preserved ! Division is impossible ! Mind has never con- 
ceived of the man equal to the task! Geographical lines can 



296 PATRIOTIC READER. 

never separate the interests of the American people, can never 
dissever the ties which unite them. Each claims the beautiful 
lakes and flourishing cities of the North. Each claims t lie ex- 
truded prairies of the West and the rich productions of the 
sunny South. Each claims Massachusetts' patriot. Each claims 
Kentucky's sage. Who has not an inheritance in the ashes of 
Vernon's tomb ? New England as loudly and as affectionately 
proclaims him Father of his country, as does Virginia. New 
England never will relincpiish her claim ; Virginia, never, never 
suffer those ashes to be touched ! 

The Divine Architect of Nature, Himself, has said in His lofty 
mountains and majestic rivers, "Be united!" Observe their 
ranges and courses. The Blue Bidge, the Alleghany, and the 
Rocky Mountains all run north and south ; the great Mississippi 
with her vast tributaries, parallel with them, waters the whole 
extent. There must be design in all this. The ancient poets 
and philosophers pictured a far-off land, across the waters, a 
fairer abode, a land of equal rights and a happy people. This, 
surely, is that land ; and through this people the Supreme Legis- 
lator has decreed that the true principles of government shall 
be taught all mankind. And as the blue arch, above, is in beauty 
shown us, so surely will it span the mightiest domain that ever 
shook earth. 

As surely as art and labor are now adorning, and science ex- 
alting, a land which religion has sanctified and patriotism re- 
deemed, so surely will the Goddess <>!' Liberty yet walk abroad 
in the gardens of Europe, and to our country shall belong all the 
honor. Then, no longer will be obscure our resplendent and 
glorious Constitution ! No more will our bright escutcheon he 
tarnished ! No more will our banner droop; but, in his original 
strength and pride, the American eagle, pluming himself for 
loftier flights and brighter (dimes, shall, fearlessly, while gazing 
on the beauties and splendors of his country's flag, shriek the 
downfall of tyranny; and the longest, loudest, proudest shout 
of Freedom's sous, in honor of Freedom's triumph, shall he, — 

"The star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the five and the home of t lie brave!" 

Alexandkk IIoqg. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 297 

UNION LINKED WITH LIBERTY. 

(From Inaugural Address, 1833.) 

Without union, our independence and liberty would never 
have been achieved ; without union, they can never be main- 
tained. 

The time at which I stand before you is full of interest. The 
eyes of all nations are fixed on our republic. The event of the 
existing crisis will be decisive, in the opinion of mankind, of the 
practicability of our federal system of government. Great is 
the stake placed in our hands ; great is the responsibility which 
must rest upon the people of the United States. Let us realize 
the importance of the attitude in which we stand before the 
world. Let us exercise forbearance and firmness. Let us ex- 
tricate our country from the dangers which surround it, and 
learn wisdom from the lessons they inculcate. Deeply impressed 
with the truth of these observations, and under the obligation 
of that solemn oath which I am about to take, I shall continue 
to exert all my faculties to maintain the just powers of the Con- 
stitution, and to transmit unimpaired to posterity the blessings 
of our Federal Union. 

At the same time, it will be my aim to inculcate, by my official 
acts, the necessity of exercising, by the General Government, 
those powers only that are clearly delegated ; to encourage sim- 
plicity and economy in the expenditures of the Government ; to 
raise no more money from the people than may be requisite for 
these objects, and in a manner that will best promote the interests 
of all classes of the community, and of all portions of the Union. 
Constantly bearing in mind that, in entering into society, indi- 
viduals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest, it 
will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with 
our brethren, in all parts of the country, a spirit of liberal con- 
cession and compromise; and by reconciling our fellow-citizens 
to those partial sacrifices which (hey must unavoidably make, 
for the preservation of a greater good, to recommend our inval- 
uable Government and Union to the confidence and affections of 
the American people. Finally, it is nry most fervent prayer to 
that Almighty Being before whom now I stand, and who has 



298 PATRIOTIC READER. 

kept us in his hands from the infancy of our republic to the 
present day, that he will so overrule all my intentions and 
actions, and inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens, that we 
may be preserved from dangers of all kinds and continue for- 
ever a united and happy people. 

Andrew Jackson. 



LIBERTY AND UNION ONE AND INSEPARABLE. 

I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily 
in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and 
the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union that 
we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity 
abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for 
whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union 
we reached only bj^ the discipline of our virtues, in the severe 
school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of dis- 
ordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under 
its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, 
as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every 
year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility 
and its blessings ; and, although our territory has stretched 
out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and 
farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. 
It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and 
personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look 
beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark 
recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of pre- 
serving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall 
be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang 
over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short 
sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could 
I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this govern- 
ment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, 
not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable 
might be the condition of the people when it should be broken 
up and destroyed. 



SPECIAL, OBLIGATIONS OP AMERICANS. 299 

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying 
prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Be- 
yond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that 
in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that 
on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When 
my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in 
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dis- 
honored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis- 
severed, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, 
or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! 

Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the 
gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
trophies streaming in tbeir original lustre, not a stripe erased 
or polluted, nor a single star obscured ; bearing for its motto 
no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth f 
nor those other words of delusion and folly, — Liberty first and 
Union afterwards ; but everywhere, spread all over in charac- 
ters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float 
over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American 
heart, — Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable I 

Daniel Webster. 



THE VALUE OF THE UNION. 
THE BATTLE OF NEW OPvLEANS. 

You cannot calculate the value of the Union ! The astrono- 
mer, from his observatory, may measure the disk of the sun, tell 
you his distance from the earth, describe the motion of his rays, 
and predict with positive certainty an eclipse, but he cannot 
compute the utility of heat, the blessings of light, nor the splen- 
dor and glory of the god of day. 

Who can calculate the value of constitutional liberty, — the 
blessings of a free press, free schools, and a free religion? 
Go and calculate the value of the air we breathe, the water 
we drink, the earth that we inhabit ! By what mathematical 



300 PATRIOTIC READER. 

process will you calculate the value of national character? In 
what scales will you weigh political equality and the ballot-box? 
At what price would you sell American citizenship? What is 
self-government worth, — its freedom, happiness, and example? 
"Calculate the value of the Union ?" 

Look at the mighty Mississippi, the Father of Waters. It 
rises in the nameless snows of North America, runs through 
twenty-three degrees of latitude, all our own soil, and washes 
the sides of ten young, flourishing, and powerful States. Its 
tributaries drain the rains that fall in sight of the Atlantic, and 
meet the streams that How into the Pacific, upon the summit of 
the Eocky Mountains. Its broad tides bear on their buoyant 
bosom the clothing of half the world, and the fertile valleys 
which spread out from its ample banks are capable of producing 
food for the whole population of the earth, for a thousand years 
to come. 

On its eastern shore, near the Crescent City, you see some 
clusters of small orange-trees growing upon a broken embank- 
ment, and now and then an old but flourishing live-oak spreads 
its green branches over the damp soil. You are on the battle- 
field of New Orleans. You behold the field of the most re- 
markable victory ever won, and, as you ascend the mouldering 
intrench ment, the morning of the 8th of January, 1815, rises 
before you. Your hearts beat anxiously; you watch the serried 
columns of Packenham advance to the charge; you note the 
calm faces of Jackson's men ; you hear the rifle's peal, the din 
of musketry, the cannon's roar; you see the repulse, the retreat, 
the field of the dead and dying; you cross the moat, and as the 
smoke clears away, you count the fallen. The English have lost 
twenty-six hundred men on that field; the Americans have lost 
seven killed and six wounded. You remember no victory like it. 
The historian tells you, " It is a disproportion of loss unrecorded 
of any oilier bailie." You see the Flag of the Stars waving over 
you, and you feel your country in your veins! 

Stand upon the battle-ground of New Orleans, by the side of 
the greal Father of Waters, and tell me, if you can, what the 
Union is worth? These are its jewels. They shine brightly in 
a diadem whose full and radiant circle sparkles all over with 
glorious deeds. Mattiikw W. Hansom. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 301 



OUR COUNTRY IS ONE GRAND POEM. 

Sir, I dare not trust myself to speak of my country with the 
rapture which I habitually feel when I contemplate her marvel- 
lous history. But this I will say, — that, on my return to it, 
after an absence of only four years, I was filled with wonder at 
all I saw and all I heard. What is to be compared with it? I 
found New York grown up to almost double its former size, 
with the air of a great capital, instead of a mere flourishing 
commercial town, as I had known it. I listened to accounts of 
voyages of a thousand miles, in magnificent steamboats, on the 
waters of those great lakes, which, but the other day, I left 
sleeping in the primeval silence of nature, in the recesses of 
a vast wilderness ; and I felt that there is a grandeur and a 
majesty in this irresistible onward march of a race, created, as 
I believe, and elected, to possess and people a continent, which 
belong to few other objects, either of the moral or material 
world. 

We may become so accustomed to such things that they shall 
make as little impression upon our minds as the glories of the 
heavens above us ; but, looking on them, lately, as with the eye 
of the stranger, I felt, what a recent English traveller is said to 
have remarked, that, far from being without poetry, as some 
have vainly alleged, our whole country is one great poem. 

Sir, it is so ; and if there be a man who can think of what is 
doing, in all parts of this most blessed of all lands, to embellish 
and advance it, — who can contemplate that living mass of in- 
telligence, activity, and improvement as it rolls on, in its sure 
and steady progress, to the uttermost extremities of the West, 
— who can see scenes of savage desolation transformed, almost 
with the suddenness of enchantment, into those of fruitfulness 
and beauty, crowned with flourishing cities, filled with the 
noblest of all populations, — if there be a man, I say, that can 
witness all this, passing under his very eyes, without feeling his 
heart beat high, and his imagination warmed and transported 
by it, be sure that the raptures of song exist not for him. 

Hugh Swinton Leqake. 



'ATRIOTIC READER. 



VAST TERRITORY NO BAR TO UNION. 

Extent of country, in my conception, ought to be no bar to 
the adoption of a good government. No extent on earth seems 
to me too great, provided the laws be wisely made and executed. 
The principles of representation and responsibility may pervade 
a large as well as a small territory, and tyranny is as easily 
introduced into a small as into a large district. Union is the 
rock of our salvation. Our safety, our political happiness, our 
existence, depend on the union of these States. Without union, 
the people of this and the other States will undergo the un- 
speakable calamities which discord, taction, turbulence, war, and 
bloodshed, have continually produced in other countries. With- 
out union, we throw away all those blessings for which we have 
so earnestly fought! Without union, there is no peace in the 
land! 

The American spirit ought to be mixed with American pride, 
— pride to see the Union magnificently triumphant. Let that 
glorious pride which once defied the British thunder, reanimate 
you again. Let it not be recorded of Americans, that, after 
having performed the most gallant exploits, after having over- 
come the most astonishing difficulties, and after having gained 
the admiration of the world, by their incomparable valor and 
policy, they lost their acquired reputation, lost their national 
consequence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no 
future historian inform posterity, that Americans wanted wis- 
dom and virtue to concur in any regular, efficient government. 

Catch the present moment ! Seize it with avidity ! It may be 

lost, never to be regained ; and if the Union be lost now, it will 

remain so forever. 

JonN Kaniioi.imi. 



INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT A BOND OF UNION. 

On this subject of national power, what can bo more im- 
portant than a perfect unity in every part, in feelings and senti- 
ments ? And what can tend more powerfully to produce it than 
overcoming the effects of distance? No country enjoying free- 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 303 

dom ever occupied anything like as great an extent of territory 
as this republic. One hundred years ago the most profound 
philosophers did not believe it to be even possible. They did 
not suppose it possible that a pure republic could exist on as 
great a scale even as the island of Great Britain. 

"What then was considered as chimerical, we have now the 
felicity to enjoy ; and, what is more remarkable, such is the 
happy mould of our government, so well are the State and gen- 
eral powers blended, that much of our political happiness draws 
its origin from the extent of our republic. It has exempted us 
from most of the causes which distracted the small republics of 
antiquity. Let it not, however, be forgotten, let it be forever 
kept in mind, that it exposes us to the greatest of all calamities, 
next to the loss of liberty, — even to disunion itself. 

We are great, and rapidly, T was about to say fearfully, grow- 
ing. This is our pride and our danger, our weakness and our 
strength. Little does he deserve to be intrusted with the liber- 
ties of this people who does not raise his mind to these truths. 
We are under the most imperious obligations to counteract every 
tendency to disunion. The strongest of all cement is, undoubt- 
edly, the wisdom, justice, and, above all, the moderation of this 
House ; yet the great subject on which we are now deliberating, 
in this respect, deserves the most serious consideration. 

"Whatever impedes the intercourse of the extremes with this, 
the centre of the republic, weakens the Union. The more en- 
larged the sphere of commercial circulation, the more extended 
that of social intercourse ; the more strongly we are bound to- 
gether, the more inseparable are our destinies. Those who 
understand the human heart best know how powerfully dis- 
tance tends to break the sympathies of our nature. Nothing, 
not even dissimilarity of language, tends more to estrange man 
from man. Let us, then, bind the republic together with a per- 
fect system of roads and canals. Let us conquer space. It is 
thus, the most distant part of the republic will be brought 
within a few days' travel of the centre ; it is thus, that a citizen 
of the West will read the news of Boston, still moist from the 

John Caldwell Calhoun. 



304 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE SHIP OP STATE. 



Break up the Union of these States because there are acknowl- 
edged evils in our system? Is it so easy a matter, then, to make 
everything in the actual world conform exactly to the ideal pat- 
tern we have conceived, in our minds, of absolute right? Sup- 
pose the fatal blow were struck, and the bonds which fasten 
together these States were severed, would the evils and mis- 
chiefs that would be experienced by those who are actually 
members of this vast republican community be all that would 
ensue? Certainly not. We are connected with the several 
nations and races of the world as no other people has ever been 
connected. We have opened our doors and invited emigration 
to our soil from all lands. Our invitation has been accepted. 
Thousands have come at our bidding. Thousands more are on 
the way. Other thousands still are standing a-tiptoe on the 
shores of the Old- World, eager to find a passage to the land 
where bread may be had for labor, and where man is treated as 
man. In our political family almost all nations are represented. 
The several varieties of the race are here subjected to a social 
fusion, out of which Providence designs to form a "new man." 

We are in this way teaching the world a great lesson, — 
namely, that men of different languages, habits, manners, and 
creeds can live together, and vote together, and. if not pray and 
worship together, yet in near vicinity, and do all in peace, and 
be, for certain purposes at least, one people. And is not this 
lesson of some value to the world, especially it' we can teach it 
not by theory merely, but through a successful example? Has 
not this lesson, thus conveyed, some connection with the world's 
progress towards that far-off period to which (he human mind 
looks for t lie fulfilment of its vision of a perfect social stale? It 
may safely be asserted that this Union could not be dissolved 
without disarranging and convulsing every pari of the globe. 
Not in the indulgence of a vain confidence did our fathers build 
I he ship of Stall' and launch it upon the waters. We will ex- 
claim, in the noble words of one of our poets, — * 

* Longfellow. 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 305 

" Thou too, sail on, ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what master laid thy keel, 
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, — 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
'Tis but the napping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale I 
In spite of rock and tempest roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee I" 

William Parsons Lunt. 



THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION. 

If there be one State in the Union, and I say it not in a boast- 
ful spirit, that may challenge comparisons with any other, for 
an uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the 
Union, that State is South Carolina. 

From the very commencement of the Eevolution, up to this 
hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully 
made, no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She has 
adhered to you, in your prosperity ; but in your adversity she 
has clung to you with more than filial affection. No mailer 
what was the condition of her domestic affairs, though deprived 
of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded by difficul- 
ties, the call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. 
Domestic discord ceased at the sound ; eveiy man became at 
20 



306 PATRIOTIC READER. 

once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were 
all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to 
the altar of their common country. 

What was the conduct of the South during the Revolution ? 
I honor New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. 
But, great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least 
equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of 
their brethren with a generous zeal which did not sutler them 
to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of 
the mother-country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to 
create a commercial rivalship, they might have found, in their 
situation, a guarantee that their tirade would be forever fostered 
and protected by Great Britain. But, trampling on all con- 
siderations, either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the 
conflict ; and, fighting for principle, perilled all in the sacred 
cause of freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history 
of the world higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suf- 
fering, and heroic endurance than by the "Whigs of Carolina 
during the Bevolution ! The whole State, from the mountains 
to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. 
The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were 
produced, or were consumed by the foe. The " Plains of Caro- 
lina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black 
and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the 
habitations of her children. Driven from their homes, into 
the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the 
spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina, sustained by 
the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved, by her 
conduct, that, though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of 

her people was invincible. 

Kobert Young Hayne. 



AMERICA'S GREETING TO ENGLAND. 

Alt. hail ! thou noble land. 

Our fathers' native soil ! 
O ! stretch thy mighty hand, 

Gigantic grown by toil, 



SPECIAL OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICANS. 307 

O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore ! 
For thou, with magic might, 
Canst reach to where the light 
Of Phoebus travels bright 
The woi'ld o'er ! 

The genius of our clime, 

From pine-embattled steep, 
Shall hail the guest sublime ; 
While the tritons of the deep 
With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim. 
Then let the world combine, — 
O'er the main, our naval line, 
Like the Milky Way, shall shine 
Bright in fame ! 

Though ages long have passed 

Since our fathers left their home, 
Their pilot in the blast, 

O'er untravelled seas to roam, — 
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins ! 
And shall we not proclaim 
That blood of honest fame, 
Which no tyranny can tame 
By its chains ? 

While the language free and bold, 
Which the bard of Avon sung, 
In which our Milton told 

How the vault of heaven rung, 
When Satan, blasted, fell with all his host, — 
While this, with reverence meet, 
Ten thousand echoes greet, 
From rock to rock repeat 
Bound our coast ; 

While the manners, while the arts, 

That mould a nation's soul, 
Still cling around our hearts, — 

Between let ocean roll, 



308 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Our joint communion breaking with the Sun: 
Yet, still, from cither beach 
The voice of blood shall reach, 
More audible than speech, 
" We are One !" 

Washington Allston. 



AMERICA. 



O mother of a mighty race, 
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace ! 
The elder dames, thy haughty peers, 
Admire and hate thy blooming years ; 

With words of shame 
And taunts of scorn they join thy name. 

They know not, in their hate and pride, 
What virtues with thy children bide, — 
How true, how good, thy graceful maids 
Make bright, like flowers, the valley shades ; 

What generous men 
Spring, like thine oaks, by hill and glen. 
***** * 

O fair young mother ! on thy brow 
Shall sit a nobler grace than now. 
Deep in the brightness of thy skies 
Tbe thronging years in glory rise, 

And, as they fleet, 
Drop strength and riches at thy feet. 

Thine eye with every coming hour 

Shall brighten, and thy fame shall tower; 

And when thy sisters, elder born, 

Would brand thy name with words of scorn, 

Before thine eye 
CTpon their li]>s the (aunt shall die. 

William Cullkn Bryant. 



PART IX. 
PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 



INTRODUCTION. 

"The imperishability op great examples" is the pledge of 
human progress and the inspiration of human hope. Incentive 
and warning alike leap out from the mists of the past to chal- 
lenge recognition, and, in return, impart to the present and the 
future a strengthened purpose and a firmer tread. Words as 
well as facts have thus blazed a path through all the centuries, 
to mark the pioneer work accomplished, leaving solid landmarks 
for our guidance and benefit. 

The voice of Edward Everett still rings in our ears : 

GREAT EXAMPLES. 

" To be cold and breathless, — to feel not, and speak not, — this is not the 
end of existence to the men who have breathed their spirits into the institu- 
tions of their country ; who have stamped their characters on the pillars of 
the age; who have poured their hearts' blood into the channels of the public 
prosperity I Tell me, ye who tread the sods of yon sacred height, is Warren 
dead ? Can you not see him, — not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant 
heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving resplendent over the 
field of honor, with the rose of heaven upon his cheek and the fire of liberty 
in his eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the shades of 
Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that cold and narrow house ? That 
which made these men, and men like these, cannot die ! The hand that 
traced the charter of Independence is, indeed, motionless ; the eloquent lips 
that sustained it are hushed; but the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, 
and maintained it, and which alone, to such men, 'make it life to live,' 
these cannot expire. 

' These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er and worlds have passed away; 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die.' " 



310 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The poet Byron thus pays his meed of tribute to 

THE PROCREATIVE VIRTUE OF GREAT EXAMPLES. 

"We must forget all feelings save the one; 
We must resign all passions save our purpose ; 
We must behold no object save our count ry ; 
And only look on death as beautiful, 
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven, 
And draw down Freedom on her evermore. 
But if we fail ? 

They never fail who die 
In a great cause. The block may soak their gore ; 
Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs 
Be strung to city gates and castle walls ; 
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, 
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
Which overpower all others, and conduct 
The world at last to Freedom." 

It was in the spirit of such utterances as these that, when 
the greatest of New England's orators rested from life's work, 
the Boston Courier uttered its memorable words of mingled sad- 
ness and triumph : 

"WEBSTER STILL LIVES. 

" The arm that defended the Constitution is broken in death. The sun that 
has so long guided the steps of the nation is quenched. The great intellect 
which poured forth its treasures of truth and wisdom for the enlightenment 
of mankind has departed from us. The lips whose words were miracles, and 
which stirred the nation like the sound of a trumpet, are forever closed, for- 
ever silent. The great heart that embraced a whole people no longer throbs 
with the flood of life. All that was mortal of Daniel Webster has returned 
to dust; but his spirit remains among us; his fame can never die, nor the 
light of his great example, nor the lessons of wisdom he has taught us. Men 
die ; principles, never I 

" Our country has lost many gifted spirits, many strong intellects, many 
brave and devoted hearts, but since the day when George Washington was 
summoned from earth we have not been called upon to mourn the loss of one 
so truly great, so clearly destined to stamp his name and character upon the 
age, as Mr. Webster. He taught the American people not only to be great 
and powerful, but he taught them justice and honor, he taught them stead- 
fast principle and manly self-respect, enlarged patriotism, comprehensive 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 311 

and true philanthropy. His teachings were for all time. A future age will 
render him the justice which was withheld from him in this. 

"The great statesman was great to the last. The light of that splendid 
intellect went out at full blaze. The strong sense, the clear thought, the 
firm self-possession, that have ever been the mental characteristics of Daniel 
Webster, remained with him to the hour of his death. He died at his 
post, with the cares of a nation on his hands, yet in full preparation for his 
great and last change. With a noble calmness of spirit he contemplated 
the sublime and solemn approach of the King of Terrors, and he passed 
into the bosom of eternity, sustained by all the hopes and confidence of a 
sincere Christian." 

The name of Simon Bolivar will be perpetually associated with 
the republics of South America, and that of Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture with the independence of San Domingo ; but neither the 
military genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, nor his stirring appeals 
to his army, could awaken that pure spirit of patriotism which 
counts an assured peace as the only true glory of war. 

Now and then some master-mind comprehends the spirit of 
an age and its exemplar characters, so that he can reproduce age 
and characters in a form that will stand as a pyramid against 
time and tempest. On the 2d of August, 1826, in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, during a memorial tribute to John Adams and Thomas 
Jefferson, Daniel Webster drew a vivid picture of the solemn 
deliberations at Philadelphia when the Declaration of American 
Independence was still pending. He saw John Hancock pre- 
side with impressive dignity. He heard the voice of some timid 
patriot, who shrank back from the awful responsibility of the 
hour. He merged the lapsed hours of more than half a century, 
and invoked the spirit of John Adams, through himself, to make 
reply. It is Webster who voices the utterance ; it is Adams who 
inspires the orator. 

SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS, JULY 4, 1776. 

" Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my 
heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at 
independence. But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injus- 
tice of England has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest, 
for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within 
our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then, 
should we defer the declaration ? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a 



312 PATRIOTIC READER. 

reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country 
and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you, 
sir, who sit in that chair; is not he, our venerable colleague near you; are 
you not both, already, the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment 
and of vengeance? Cut oft 1 from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, 
what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws ? If 
we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on, or to give up, the war? 
Do we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port-Bill and 
all? Do we mean to submit and consent that we ourselves shall be ground 
to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I 
know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend 
to violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that plight- 
ing, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him 
forth to incur the dangers of war as well as the political hazards of the times, 
we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and 
our lives? I know there is not a man here who would not rather see a 
general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake sink it, than one 
jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having, 
twelve months ago, in this place, moved you that George Washington be 
appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defence of 
American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I give 
him. The war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the 
war must go on, why put off longer the declaration of independence? 
That measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The 
nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowl- 
edge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I maintain 
that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of 
independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her 
whole conduct towards us has been a course of injustice and oppression. 
Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things 
which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in 
controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former she would regard as 
the result of fortune; the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace. 
Why, then, why, then, sir, do we not, as soon as possible, change this from 
a civil to a national war? And, since we must fight it through, why not 
put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the 
victory ? 

" If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause 
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, 
if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously 
through this struggle. 

" I care not how tickle other people have been found. I know the people 
of these colonies ; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep 
and settled in their hearts, and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 313 

has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the 
declaration will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a 
long and bloody war for restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, 
for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the 
glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew 
the breath of life. Bead this declaration at the head of the army ; every 
sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to main- 
tain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit ; re- 
ligion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, 
resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls ; proclaim 
it there ; let them hear it, who heard the first roar of the enemy's cannon ; 
let them see it, who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of 
Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, — and the very 
walls will cry out in its support. 

" Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs ; but I see, I see clearly, 
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not 
live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. "We may die ; 
die, colonists ; die, slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scaffold. 
Be it so ! Be it so ! If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall 
require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the ap- 
pointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But, while I do live, 
let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free 
country. 

" But, whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured, that this declara- 
tion will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood ; but it will 
stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of 
the present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in heaven. We shall 
make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves our 
children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with fes- 
tivity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return, they will shed 
tears, copious, gushing tears, not of subjection and slavery, not of agony and 
distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I be- 
lieve the hour is come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole 
heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in 
this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I began, 
that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living 
sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment : — 
independence now, and independence forever!" 



314 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 



WHAT MAKES A HERO? 

"What makes a hero ? Not success, not fame, 

Inebriate merchants, and the loud acclaim 
Of glutted Avarice, caps tossed up in air, 
Or pen of journalist, with flourish fair, 

Bells pealed, stars, ribbons, and a titular name, — 
These, though his rightful tribute, he can spare ; 

His rightful tribute, — not his end or aim, 
Or true reward ; for never yet did these 
Ee fresh the soul, or set the heart at ease. 

What makes a hero ? An heroic mind, 

Expressed in action, in endurance proved. 
And if there be pre-eminence of right, 
Derived through pain well suffered, to the height 

Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved, 

Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind, 

Not the brute fury of barbarians blind, 

But worse, — ingratitude and poisonous darts 

Launched by the country he had served and loved : 

This, with a free, unclouded spirit pure, 

This, in the strength of silence to endure, 
A dignity to noble deeds imparts, 
Beyond the gauds and trappings of renown : 
This is the hero's complement and crown ; 

This missed, one struggle had been wanting still, 

One glorious triumph of the heroic will, 
One self-approval in his heart of hearts. 

Henry Taylor. 



MOSES THE FIRST LIBERATOR. 

(Period of life, from about 1570 to 1450 b.c.) 

The conquest of nations and the subversion of governments 
formed, as well as exhibited, such men as Alexander, Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and others of a sim- 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 315 

ilar character. We sicken while we read of their exploits, and 
blush that such scourges of the world should have claimed a 
common nature with ourselves. But there have been times 
when empire and religion changed for the better. Among the 
men who, at such periods, have risen to eminence, the prophet 
Moses is unquestionably the first. In all the talents which 
enlarge the human mind, and all the virtues which ennoble the 
human heart, in the amiableness of private life and the dignity 
of a ruler, in dangers hazarded and difficulties overcome, in 
splendor of destination and the enjoyment and proof of divine 
complacency, he is clearly without a rival. 

Born with a superior soul, educated in the first school of 
wisdom, trained to arms and to policy in the most improved and 
powerful court in the world, and nurtured in wisdom still more 
sublime, in the quiet retreats of Midian, he came forth, to accom- 
plish a more important revolution than had ever taken place, 
and, under God, was formed and finished, as the instrument 
which so illustrious a design required. 

In whatever course of life, in whatever branch of character, 
we trace this great man, we find almost everything to approve 
and love, and scarcely anything to blame or censure. We mark 
unexampled patriotism, immovable by ingratitude, rebellion, 
and insult : glorious integrity, in always adhering to the duties 
of his office ; unseduced by power and splendor ; unmoved by 
homage ; unawed by faction or opposition ; undaunted by danger 
or difficulty ; unaltered by provocation, obloquy, and distress ; 
meek beyond example ; patient and persevering through forty 
years of declining life, of trial, toil, and hazard. We read in his 
own writings the frank record of his own failings, and those of 
his family, friends, and nation. We see the first efforts of the 
historian, the poet, the orator, and the law-giver, and a life of 
self-government, benevolence, and piety approximating to an- 
gelic virtue. In him we behold the Deliverer of his Nation ; the 
restorer of truth ; the pillar of righteousness, and the reformer 
of mankind. He is, everywhere, the same glorious person ; the 
greatest of all the prophets conducted to Pisgah ; unclothed of 
mortal flesh, and entombed in the dust, by the immediate hand 
of the Most High. 

Timothy Dwight. 



316 PATRIOTIC READER. 

THE LAST HOURS OP SOCRATES. 

(470-399 B.C.) 

Socrates was the reverse of a sceptic. No man ever looked 
upon life with a more positive and practical eye. No man 
ever pursued his mark with a clearer perception of the road 
which he was travelling. No man ever combined, in like 
manner, the absorbing enthusiasm of a missionary, with the 
acuteness, the originality, the inventive resources, and the gen- 
eralizing comprehension, of a philosopher. And yet this man 
was condemned to death, condemned by a hostile tribunal of 
more than five hundred citizens of Athens, drawn at hazard 
from all classes of society. A majorit}^ of six turned the scale, 
in the most momentous trial, up to that time, the world had 
witnessed. And the vague charges on which Socrates was con- 
demned Avere, that he was a vain babbler, a corrupter of youth, 
and a setter-forth of strange gods ! 

It would be tempting to enlarge on the closing scene of his 
life, a scene which Plato has invested with such immortal 
glory ; on the affecting farewell to the judges ; on the long 
thirty days which passed in prison before the execution of the 
verdict ; on his playful equanimity, amid the uncontrolled emo- 
tions of his companions ; on the gathering in of that solemn 
evening, when the fading of the sunset hues on the tops of 
the Athenian hills was the signal that the last hour was at 
hand ; on the introduction of the fatal hemlock ; the immova- 
ble countenance of Socrates, the firm hand, and then the burst 
of frantic lamentation from all his friends, as, with his habitual 
ease and cheerfulness, he drained the cup to its dregs ; then 
the solemn silence enjoined by himself; the pacing to and fro; 
the strong religious persuasions attested by his last words ; 
the cold palsy of the poison creeping from the extremities to 
the heart ; the gradual torpor ending in death ! But I must 
forbear. 

Oh for a modern spirit like his ! Oh for one hour of Socrates ! 
Oh for one hour of that voice whose questioning would make 
men see what ■ they knew, and what they did not know ; what 
they meant, and what they only thought they meant; what 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 317 

they believed in truth, and what they only believed in name j 
wherein they agreed, and wherein they differed. That voice 
is, indeed, silent ; but there is a voice in each man's heart and 
conscience, which, if we will, Socrates has taught us to use 
rightly. That voice still enjoins us to give to ourselves a 
reason for the hope that is in us, both hearing and asking 
questions. It tells us, that the fancied repose which self-in- 
quiry disturbs is more than compensated by the real repose it 
gives ; that a wise questioning is the half of knowledge ; and 
that a life without self-examination is no life at all. 

Epes Sargent. 



ALFRED THE GREAT. 

(848-901 a.d.) 

As great and good in peace as he was great and good in war, 
King Alfred never rested from his labors to improve his people. 
He made just laws that they might live more happily and freely ; 
he turned away all partial judges that no wrong might be done 
them ; he was so careful of their property, and punished robbers 
so severely, that it was a common thing to say that under the 
great King Alfred garlands of golden chains and jewels might 
have hung across the streets, and no man would have touched 
them. 

He founded schools ; he patiently heard causes himself in his 
court of justice. Every day he divided into certain portions, and 
in each portion devoted himself to a certain pursuit. That he 
might divide his time exactly, he had wax torches or candles 
made, which were all of the same size, were notched across 
at regular distances, and were always kept burning. Thus, 
as the candles burned down, he divided the day into notches, 
almost as accurately as we now divide . it into hours by the 
clock. He had the candles put into cases formed of wood and 
white horn ; and these were the first lanthorns ever made in 
England. 

A brave, good man he lived, and, after a reign of thirty years, 



318 PATRIOTIC READER. 

died at the age of fifty-three, in the year nine hundred and one ; 

but, long ago as that is, his fame, and the love and gratitude with 

which his subjects regarded him, are freshly remembered to the 

present hour. 

Charles Dickens. 



WILLIAM THE SILENT. 
(1533-1584 a.d.) 

The history of the rise of the Netherland Eepublic is at the 
same time the biography of " William the Silent." That life 
was a noble Christian epic, inspired with one great purpose from 
its commencement to its close ; the stream flowing ever from 
one fountain with expanding fulness, but retaining all its original 
purity. 

Of his moral qualities, the most prominent was his piety. 
From his trust in God he ever derived support and consolation, 
even in his darkest hours. He looked danger in the face with a 
constant smile, and endured incessant labors and trials with a 
serenity which seemed more than human. Tolerant of error, 
no man ever felt more keenly than he, that the reformer who 
becomes in his turn a bigot is doubly odious. His constancy in 
bearing the whole weight of a struggle as unequal as men have 
ever undertaken, was the theme of admiration even to his ene- 
mies. He lived and died, not for himself, but for his country. 
When assassinated, July 10, 1584, his dying words were, " God 
pity this poor people !" 

The supremacy of his political genius was entirely beyond 
question. He was the first statesman of his age. His knowl- 
edge of human nature was profound. He governed the passions 
and sentiments of a great nation as if they had been but the 
keys and chords of one vast instrument ; and his hand rarely 
failed to evoke harmony even out of the wildest storms. Pos- 
sessed of a ready eloquence, sometimes impassioned, but always 
rational, his influence over his audience was unexampled in the 
annals of that country or age ; yet he never condescended to 
flatter the people. He never followed, but always led, the nation 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 319 

in the path of duty and honor ; much more prone to rebuke the 
vices than to pander to the passions of his hearers. He never 
failed to administer ample chastisement wherever it was due, to 
parsimony, to insubordination, to intolerence, to infidelity; nor 
feared to confront the States, or the people, in their most angry 
hours, and to tell them the truth to their faces. 

At fifteen, he was the confidential counsellor, as at twenty- 
one he became the general-in-chief, to the most politic as well 
as the most warlike potentate of his age. His enemies said 
that he was governed by a desire of personal advancement, but 
never denied his talents, his industry, and his vast sacrifices 
of wealth and station. As far as can be judged by a careful 
observation of undisputed facts, and by a diligent collation of 
public and private documents, it would seem that no man, 
not even Washington, had ever been inspired by a purer pa- 
triotism. 

William the Silent went through life, bearing the load of a 
people's sorrows upon his shoulders, with a smiling face. Their 
name was the last word upon his lips, save the simple affirmative 
with which the soldier, who had been battling for the right all 
his lifetime, commended his soul, in dying, " to his great Captain, 
Christ." The people were grateful and affectionate, for they 
trusted the character of their " Father William." As long as 
he lived, he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and 
when he died, the little children cried in the streets. 

John Lothrop Motley. 



JOHN MILTON GIVES EYESIGHT TO LIBERTY. 

(From Lecture upon Milton as an Educator.) 

The Commonwealth was in danger. Liberty, whether in Eng- 
land or Ireland, Massachusetts or Carolina, does not rest, cannot 
rest long, on bayonets ; but on the intelligence and virtue of the 
people ; and the book of Salmasius was confusing the intelli- 
gence, undermining the virtue, bringing odium upon republican 
government, and paving the way for the triumphal return of 



320 PATRIOTIC READER. 

despotism. The Council of State voted " that Mr. Milton do 
prepare something in answer to the book of Salmasius." But 
Milton's eyesight was now so feeble and so dependent upon his 
general health, then sadly impaired by excessive toil, that his 
physicans absolutely forbade new literary labor. They warned 
him that the certain effect of writing the proposed reply would 
be the loss of his remaining eye, for his left eye was gone already. 
"I did not long balance," says Milton, " whether my duty should 
be preferred to my eyes !" So he wrote and published his " De- 
fence of the People of England," a work of prodigious energy, 
smiting Salmasius like a Thor hammer, pulverizing him and his 
arguments. Milton's fame at once spread over the world. His 
book was repeatedly translated into foreign tongues, and had 
the distinguished honor to be publicly burned, by the common 
hangman, both at Toulouse and Paris. 

But in 1653, as forewarned, Milton became totally blind. 
Aided by amanuenses, he still toiled for freedom ; and there was 
sore need of it. Alas, oppression bears a charmed life ! 

In 1658, Cromwell died. In 1660, Charles II. was trium- 
phantly enthroned. Eepublican government had been tried in 
England, but the people were not ready for it. Milton was 
himself in peril. The spirit that could behead "good Sir Harry 
Vane, once governor of Massachusetts," pronounced by "Wendell 
Phillips to have been "the greatest man that ever trod the 
streets of Boston," could hardly brook the life of the mightiest 
literary champion of freedom. 

A resolution of the House of Commons and a royal Proclama- 
tion singled him out by name for vengeance. "We are told that 
he was concealed in a friend's house, for four months ; that he 
was reported as dead, and a mock-funeral paraded for him in 
London. His property was swept away. By order of Parlia- 
ment, his " Image-Breaker" and his " Defence of the People of 
England" were burned in the centre of London during August, 
1660. 

This was Milton's gloomiest period. The darkness that veiled 
his eyes was but typical of that deeper shadow. "What a shadow ! 
Property gone, health failing, life imperilled, old age coming on 
apace ; political and religious liberty, for which he had battled 
so long and so well, and for which he had cheerfully given up 



PATRIOTIC TEIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 321 

the precious light of day, — even that annihilated ; his magnifi- 
cent writings vanished in smoke, the friends of his manhood 
slain, or hunted and hiding like Goffe, "Whalley, and Dixwell in 
the caves and cellars of Connecticut and Massachusetts ; the 
putrid corpses of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw dug up 
from their repose of years and swinging in chains at Tyburn; 
the Avatar of lust, the reign of diabolism visibly begun ; such 
men as the good Dr. South poisoned against him, and stigma- 
tizing him as " the blind adder that spit venom on the king's 
cause ;" even his own daughters, as there is too much reason 
to believe, siding with the royalists against their father, cheat- 
ing him, and selling his choicest books away from him. How 
changed ! 

O calm gray eyes, that shall see the sunlight nevermore ! 
locks, once clustering in auburn and gold, now thin and gray ! 
face, once radiant with joy and beautiful as an angel's, now fur- 
rowed and saddened with agonies that have torn the heart! 
hands, once skilled to ply the pen, to swing the sword, or finger 
the organ-keys, now groping feebly to supply, by touch, the want 
of sight! form, once of celestial symmetry, now bowed with 
disease, pain, and age, tremulous, slow, with garments faded 
and worn ! Ah, the twin serpents, civil tyranny and religious 
bigotry, twining around him and around him, have stifled this 
truth-telling Laocoon at last ! 

And yet, of all men, he least needed pity. His soul was un- 
subdued, heroic, radiant with truth, strong in G-od. Out of 
Bunyan's prison flashed his immortal allegory ! Out of Milton's 
darkness shone the unfading splendors of " Paradise Lost" ! 
Flowers and fruits from that Eden now fill with fragrance and 
beauty the school-books of every child, illustrating, to use his 
own language, " what religious, Avhat glorious, what magnificent 
use may be made of poetry." Thus, " being dead, he yet speak- 
eth !" Silenced by tyranny for a moment, how grandly was all 
overruled by Divine Providence, so that, till the end of time, the 
London teacher might be the world's educator ! But, greater 
than all his books, the life of Milton is an educating force, a 
power for evermore. 

Homer Baxter Spragtje. 
21 



322 PATRIOTIC READER. 

WILLIAM PITT. 
AN ODE TO MR. PITT. 

(This ode is a tribute of very early appreciation of Mr. Pitt's 
devotion to the people, and is given literally. On November 10, 
1759, Poet-Laureate Whitehead issued a Birthday Ode in honor 
of George II., not recognizing Minister Pitt, to whose patriotic 
energy the closing years of that reign owed their glory, by 
land and sea. Stanzas addressed " To a Great Minister and 
Great Man," with a burlesque, addressed " To no Minister nor 
Great Man," seem to have inspired those now quoted. Grat tan's 
eulogy of Mr. Pitt is familiar, and enough has been exhibited in 
Part IV. of Mr. Pitt's patriotic character to warrant its omission.) 

Our prayers unbribed, unpensioned, rise 
For thee, the fav'rite of the skies, 

The guardian of the land ; 
For thee, defender of the laws, 
The foremost in fair Freedom's cause, 

The chief of Virtue's band. 

Long may thy light thy country cheer ! 
Thou minister without a peer, 

Long may thy wisdom warm ! 
For, like the Spring, thy genial ray 
Improves the sun, adorns the day, 

And guards us all from harm. 

Behold the ox in safety feeds, 
And Ceres scatters all her seeds, 

And Plenty smiles around. 
Each ship triumphant rides the main, 
Bright Honor dreads black Slander's stain, 

And dances glad the ground. 

Britannia now for battle burns, 
Behold, her genius now returns, 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 323 

Her foes dismayed with fear ; 
Her vengeance shall affright the brave, 
Reduce the proud, and crush the slave, 

If Pitt but points the spear. 

Auspicious Pitt ! thy glory beams 
On Mississippi's silver streams, 

And Ohio's savage shores ; 
It dazzles Afric's tawny race, 
Inspires the noble, scares the base, 

And ev'ry heart explores. 

Now blest, and free, each Briton roves 
Along his hills, or thro' his groves, 

Nor fears the frown of kings ; 
Enjoys himself (that bliss divine), 
Or, to the elm, he joins the vine, 

Or clears the bubbling springs, 

Then social quaffs the cheerful bowl, 
While gratitude inflames his soul, 

And Pitt employs his praise ; 
In solemn pomp he crowns his bust, 
Amidst the great, the good, and just, 

With laurels, palms, and bays. 

Oh I be it thine, at last, to close 

The scene of war, — of Europe's woes, 

And hush the world to rest ; 
Bid Peace advance with placid mien, 
Proclaim her sports on every green, 

And let each land be blest. 

This is our prayer, when cool we rise, 
Ere morning blushes streak the skies, 

Or Phoebus sips the dew ; 
This is our pi-ayer, when thee we toast, 
Auspicious Pitt! as " Britain's boast," 

And ev'ning joys renew. 

Annual Register, 1759, p. 446. 



324 PATRIOTIC READER. 

WILLIAM PBNN. 

William Penn stands the first among the law-givers whose 
names and deeds are recorded in history. Shall we compare 
with him Lycurgus, Solon, Eomulus, those founders of military 
commonwealths, who organized their citizens in dreadful array 
against the rest of their species ? taught them to consider their 
fellow-men as barbarians, and themselves as alone worthy to 
rule over the earth? What benefit did mankind derive from 
their boasted institutions ? Interrogate the shades of those who 
fell in the mighty contests between Athens and Lacedaemon, 
between Carthage and Eome, and between Borne and the rest 
of the universe. But see our William Penn, with weaponless 
hands, sitting down peaceably with his followers in the midst 
of savage nations, whose only occupation was shedding the 
blood of their fellow-men, disarming them by his justice, and 
teaching them, for the first time, to view a stranger without 
distrust. See them bury their tomahawks in his presence, so 
deep that man shall never be able to find them again. See 
them, under the shade of the thick groves of Quaquannock, 
extend the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise to 
preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall endure. See him, 
then, with his companions, establishing his commonwealth on 
the sole basis of religion, morality, and universal love, and 
adopting, as the fundamental maxims of his government, the 
rule handed down to us from heaven, " Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men." 

Here was a spectacle for the potentates of the earth to look 
upon, an example for them to imitate. But the potentates of 
the earth did not see, or, if they saw, they turned away their 
eyes from the sight ; they did not hear, or, if they heard, they 
shut their ears against the voice. 

The character of William Penn alone sheds a never-fading 
lustre upon our history. No other State in this Union can boast 
of such an illustrious founder ; none began their social career 
under auspices so honorable to humanity. Every trait of the 
life of that great man, every fact and anecdote of those golden 
times, will furnish many an interesting subject for the fancy of 
the novelist and the enthusiasm of the poet. 

Peter S. Duponceau. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 325 



JONATHAN TRUMBULL. 

The leading feature in his character, ever in exercise, a vir- 
tue steadfast and warming as the sun, was his distinguishable 
patriotism. As an ardent and constant natural impulse, it was 
not distinguishable, more than in other men, but it was signally- 
pure, it was enlightened, it was heroic. Signally pure it was, 
for there did not rest upon it a single stain of self-interest. He 
toiled for others, not for himself; for the advancement of his 
country, not his own ; not alone for the America of the Bevolu- 
tion, but for the America of all time. Foreseeing clearly the 
rising greatness of this land under the fostering embrace of 
Liberty and Union, and under the sunshine of peace, knowing 
well its inexhaustible resources, and the laws which should 
govern its progress, he took an interest in public affairs which 
was most profound. He labored to combine, in one great har- 
mony, all sectional interests. 

Patriotism often has its counterfeits in national vanity or a 
contented self-sufficiency. In Trumbull it bore none of these 
false stamps. He did not enter the bloody arena of the Ameri- 
can Eevolution simply that he might open the book of history 
and show America, in feats of arms, belligerent as Athens, brave 
as Sparta, resolute as Eome, hardy as Germany, indefatigable as 
Holland, chivalric as Spain, gallant as Gaul, and mightier far 
than her English mother-foe, but to vindicate the honor of his 
native land, and to plant for her, set beyond even the tornado's 
power, that Tree of Liberty, whose fruitage, and wbose whole 
fruitage, he knew to be civilization, prosperity, happiness, and 
glory. His patriotism was pure, like the chaste passion of the 
poet for his Muse. His patriotism was like the zeal of the 
painter for glorious forms of art, working within him, by virtue 
of an intense and irresistible yearning in his nature, for the 
sublime and beautiful in human government and human im- 
provement. 

But the patriotism of Trumbull was enlightened. His mind 
grasped with more than ordinary power the grand idea of the 
greatest of societies, the State, and felt the excellence of its 
mechanism, almost as a living thing, whose disruption or injury 



32(> PATRIOTIC READER. 

would bring death to all the valuable interests of his country- 
men. To him, therefore, the celebrated Charter of Connecticut 
was, peculiarly, a grand patriotic missive, which made bim acute 
to perceive the first secret invasions of American rights, quick- 
ened him to trace them down, through their whole sad series 
of consequences, into an oppressor's final errands of blood and 
rapine, and rendered him swift to organize resistance. His 
patriotism was the exact counterpart of that which shone in 
the spirit of the immortal Hampden, and of that spirit which 
beamed from the life of one, whose enlightened republican effort, 
virtuous eagerness, and noble modesty, stamped him as the 
savior of Genoa, — the renowned Andrea Doria. 

The patriotism of Trumbull was heroic. Look at him, at the 
outset of the Eevolutionary struggle, voluntarily constituting 
himself the only rebel executive, among thirteen governors, in 
the colonies. Before him was one of the mightiest of human 
monarchs claiming his allegiance, but he spurned it in the face 
of rewards, princely and profusely within his reach, to espouse 
the side of his native land. His spirit of patriotism knew no 
difficulty, contemned all danger. It flew through the people, 
rousing activity, infusing patience, and enkindling intrepidity. 
It exclaimed to every son of Connecticut and to every sister 
State in the Union, in the language of the great Frederick to his 
gallant little army before the battle of Eossbach, "My brave 
countrymen, the hour is come in which all that is and all that 
ought to be dear to us, depends upon the swords that are now 
drawn forth in battle. You see me ready to lay down my life 
with you, and for you. All I ask of you, is the same pledge of 
fidelity and affection that I give. Acquit yourselves like men, 

and put your confidence in God." 

Isaac M. Stuart. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

(June 11, 1790.) 

Franklin is dead ! Restored to the bosom of the Divinity, is 
that genius which gave freedom to America, and rayed forth 
torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 327 

claim — the man whom the History of Empires and the History 
of Science alike contend for — occupied, it cannot be denied, a 
lofty rank among his species. Long enough have political cabi- 
nets signalized the death of those who were great in their funeral 
eulogies only. Long enough has the etiquette of courts pre- 
scribed hypocritical mournings. For their benefactors, only, 
should nations assume the emblems of grief; and the represent- 
atives of nations should commend only the heroes of humanity 
to public veneration. 

In the fourteen States of the Confederacy, Congress has or- 
dained a mourning of two months, for the death of Franklin ; and 
America is at this moment acquitting herself of this tribute of 
honor to one of the fathers of her Constitution. Would it not 
become us, gentlemen, to unite in this religious act ; to partici- 
pate in this homage, publicly rendered, at once to the rights of 
man, and to the philosopher who has contributed most largely 
to their vindication throughout the world ? Antiquity would 
have erected altars to this great and powerful genius, who, to 
promote the welfare of mankind, comprehending both the 
heavens and the earth in the range of his thought, could at once 
snatch the bolt from the cloud and the sceptre from tyrants. 
France, enlightened and free, owes at least the acknowledgment 
of her remembrance, and regret, to one of the greatest intellects 
that ever served the united cause of philosophy and liberty. I 
propose that it be now decreed that the National Assembly wear 
mourning, during three days, for Benjamin Franklin. 

VlCTOB RlQTJETTI DE MlRABEAU. 



FRANKLIN'S EPIGRAMS. 

(" Poor Kichard's Sayings.") 

If pride leads the van, beggary brings up the rear. 
He that can travel well afoot keeps a good horse. 
Some men grow mad by studying much to know, but who 
grows mad by studying good to grow ? 
Whate'er's begun in anger ends in shame. 
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals. 



328 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Against diseases, know the strongest defensive virtue, absti- 
nence. 

Sloth maketh all things difficult ; industry, all easy. 

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, 
serve yourself. 

A mob is a monster; with heads enough, but no brains. 

There is nothing humbler than ambition when it is about to 
climb. 

The discontented man finds no easy chair. 

When prosperity was well mounted, she let go the bridle, and 
soon came tumbling out of the saddle. 

A little neglect may breed great mischief. For want of a nail 
the shoe was lost, and for want of a shoe the horse was lost, and 
for want of a horse the rider was lost. 

A false friend and a shadow attend only while the sun shines. 

Plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn 
to sell and keep. 

Old boys have playthings as well as young ones ; the difference 
is only in price. 

If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a 
friend. 

One to-day is worth two to-morrows. 

It is foolish to lay out money in a purchase of repentance. 

If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow 
some ; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing. 

Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped 
with Contempt. 

Fly pleasures, and they will follow you. 

Creditors have better memories than debtors. Creditors are a 
superstitious set, — great observers of set days and times. 



SAMUEL ADAMS. 

(From Centennial Address at Concord, Massachusetts, April 19, 1875.) 

Samuel Adams, the New-Englander in whom the Eevolution 
seemed to be most fully embodied, was not eloquent like Otis, 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 329 

nor scholarly like Quincy, nor all-fascinating like Warren ; yet, 
bound heart to heart with these great men, his friends, the plain- 
est, simplest, austerest among them, he gathered all their sepa- 
rate gifts, and, adding to them from his own, fused the whole, 
in the glow of that untiring energy, that unerring perception, 
that sublime will, which moved before the chosen people of the 
colonies, — a pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. 

Until 1768, Samuel Adams did not despair of a peaceful issue 
of the quarrel with Great Britain. But when in May of that 
year the British frigate Eomney sailed into Boston harbor, and 
her shotted guns were trained upon the town, he saw that the 
question was chauged. From that moment, he knew that 
America must be free or slave, and the unceasing effort of his 
life, by day and night, with tongue and pen, was to nerve his 
fellow-colonists to strike when the hour should come. On that 
gray December evening, two years later, when he rose in the 
Old South, and in a clear, calm voice said, "This meeting can 
do nothing more to save the country," and so gave the word for 
the march to the tea-ships, he comprehended more clearly, per- 
haps, than any man in the colonies, the immense and far-reach- 
ing consequences of his words. He was ready to throw the tea 
overboard, because he was ready to throw overboard the king 
and Parliament of England. 

During the ten years from the passage of the Stamp Act to 
the fight at Lexington and Concord, this poor man, in an obscure 
provincial town beyond the sea, was engaged with the British 
ministry in one of the mightiest contests that history records. 
Not a word in Parliament, that he did not hear ; not an act in the 
cabinet, that he did not see. Intrenched in his own honesty, the 
king's gold could not buy him. Enshrined in the love of his 
fellow-citizens, the king's writ could not take him. And when, 
on this morning, the king's troops marched to seize him, his 
sublime faith saw, beyond the clouds of the moment, the rising 
sun of the America that we behold, and, careless of himself, 
mindful only of his country, he exultingly exclaimed, " Oh, 
what a glorious morning 1" 

Yet this man held no office but that of clerk of the Assem- 
bly, to which he was yearly elected, and that of constant Mod- 
erator of the town-meeting. That was his mighty weapon. The 



330 PATRIOTIC READER. 

town-meeting was the alarm-bell with which he aroused the con- 
tinent. It was the rapier with which he fenced with the minis- 
try. It was the claymore with which he smote their counsels. 
It was the harp of a thousand strings that he swept into a burst 
of passionate defiance, or an electric call to arms, or a proud 
paean of exulting triumph, — defiance, challenge, and exultation, 
all lifting the continent to independence. His indomitable will 
and command of the popular confidence, played Boston against 
London, the provincial town-meeting against the royal Parlia- 
ment, Faneuil Hall against St. Stephen's. And as long as the 
American town-meeting is known, its great genius will be re- 
vered, who, with the town-meeting, overthrew an empire. So 
long as Faneuil Hall stands, Samuel Adams will not want his 
most fitting monument, and when Faneuil Hall falls, its name, 
with his, will be found written, as with a sunbeam, upon every 
faithful American heart. 

George William Curtis. 



REVOLUTIONARY VETERANS HONORED. 

(From Address at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, 
June 17, 1825.) 

Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a former 
generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives 
that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where 
you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers 
and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your 
country. 

Behold, how altered ! The same heavens are, indeed, over 
your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else, 
how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you 
see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning 
Charlestown. 

The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the im- 
petuous charge ; the steady and successful repulse ; the loud 
call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to 
repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 331 

bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war 
and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them 
no more. All is peace. 

The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which 
you then saw nlled with wives and children and countrymen in 
distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for 
the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the 
sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and 
greet you with a universal jubilee. 

Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately 
lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling 
around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your coun- 
try's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace ; and 
God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere 
you slumber in the grave forever. 

He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward 
of your patriotic toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons and 
countrymen, to meet you here, and, in the name of the present 
generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, 
to thank you ! 

But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword have 
thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Eead, 
Pomeroy, Bridge ! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this 
broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only 
to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own 
bright example. 

But let us not too much grieve that you have met the com- 
mon fate of men. You lived, at least, long enough to know 
that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. 
You lived to see your country's independence established and to 
sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you 
saw arise the light of Peace, like 

" another morn, 
Kisen on mid-noon," — 

and the sky, on which you closed your eyes, was cloudless. 

Daniel Webster. 



332 PATRIOTIC READER. 



NATHAN HALE. 



Nathan Hale was born on the 6th of June, 1755, at Cov- 
entry, Connecticut. His early education was of that distiuctly 
domestic type, under definite religious direction, which partook 
of the New England custom of those days. It looked forward 
to the best, and upward to the noblest, so that there was no ser- 
vice, for God or country, to which the boy, trained under its 
influence, might not aspire. 

Such distinctly religious training as was given in those old 
Puritan congregations of New England, had its visible effect 
in the political struggle of that time. No one understands the 
political history of the Eevolution who does not remember 
what had been, for a century and a half, their ecclesiastical 
history. They went into the contest with such confidence in 
their own local governments, and in their sufficiency to com- 
bine, with others, like themselves, that single towns declared 
war, separately, against George III. Where did such towns 
learn that lesson of self-reliance ? Where did they learn that, 
when a great occasion should arise, such separate communities 
would stand shoulder to shoulder, as if united in the most 
absolute political power? It was simply the lesson of their 
Congregational Order, where every church, which is absolutely 
separate, for its own affairs, finds no difficulty in holding abso- 
lute unity with sister churches, against the common enemy of 
mankind. For one hundred and fifty years they had been 
learning that central lesson of the civil liberty of to-day, the 
lesson which gives life and form to every constitution which 
the last century has called into being, — the double lesson of 
local independence for local purposes, and of vital organic unity 
tor national purposes. 

Young Hale entered Yale College at fourteen, having, ulti- 
mately, the ministry in view. Just after the battle of Lexing- 
ton, at a town-meeting, with the audacity of boyhood, he cried 
out, "Let us never lay down our arms till we have achieved 
independence !" Where had ho learned that new word, not to 
be found in Shakespeare, or in Spenser, and. in Bacon, only as 
applied to the " Independents" of England ? Is there on record 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 333 

any earlier demand for independence than this bold utterance 
of the boy, Nathan Hale, in April, 1775 ? 

Not yet two years out of college, he secured release from the 
school he was teaching, enlisted in Webb's regiment, the Sev- 
enth Connecticut, — by the 1st of September was promoted from 
lieutenant to captain, and on the 14th marched to Cambridge. 
He shared in the achievement at Dorchester, and his regi- 
ment was one of the five that first marched to New London and 
thence by water to New York. On the 29th of August, 1776, 
a sergeant and four of his men attempted to burn the frigate 
Phoenix, and did cut out one of her tenders, securing four 
cannon. 

The war goes on. "Where was Hale, as the weeks go by? 
He was on dangerous service. Washington needed immediate 
information of the enemy's plans. At a meeting of officers, 
when his wishes-were made known, one answered, " I am will- 
ing to be shot; but not hung." When dead silence ensued, 
Hale, the youngest captain present, still pale from recent sick- 
ness, spoke out : " I will undertake it. If my country de- 
mands a peculiar service, its claims are imperious." These 
are the last words we can report of him, until those, near his 
death. 

In the second week of September he made a successful at- 
tempt, taking with him his college diploma, to pass for a Con- 
necticut school-master, and secured the information desired ; but 
his boat failed to meet him. A British boat answered the signal. 
His notes, written in Latin, exposed him. He was taken to New 
York on that eventful 21st of September when five hundred of 
its buildings were burned, was summarily tried, and executed the 
next day. The brutal provost-marshal burned, before his face, 
the letters written to his friends, saying, as excuse, " The rebels 
shall not know they have a man who can die so bravely." A 
Bible was refused him, but he was permitted, in derision, " to 
address the people when he went to the gallows." One sen- 
tence makes his name immortal : " I only regret that I have 
but one life to give to my country." 

Edward Everett Hale. 



334 PATRIOTIC READER. 



WASHINGTON'S LAMENT FOR LAFAYETTE. 

(The author of these lines served as lieutenant-colonel in the 
Revolution, then as Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, and then 
as Attorney-General of the United States. While a member of 
Washington's cabinet he visited Mount Vernon, and there put in 
this form his conversation with the President as to the imprison- 
ment by Austria of their old comrade and friend Lafayette.) 

THE LAMENT OF WASHINGTON. 

As beside his cheerful fire, 'midst his happy family, 
Sat a venerable sire, tears were starting in his eye, 
Selfish blessings were forgot, 
Whilst he thought on Fayette's lot, 
Once so happy on our plains, 
Now in poverty and chains. 

" Fayette," cried he, " honored name, 
Dear to these far-distant shores ; 
Fayette, fired by Freedom's flame, 
Bled to make that Freedom ours ; 
What, alas, but this remains, 
What, but poverty and chains 1 

" Soldiers, in our field of death 
Was not Fayette foremost there ? 
Cold and shivering on the heath, 
Did you not his bounty share ? 
What reward but this remains, 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

" Hapless Fayette, 'midst thine error, 
How my soul thy worth reveres ! 
Son of Freedom, tyrants' terror, 
Hero of both hemispheres, 
What reward for all remains, 
What, but poverty and chains ! 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 335 

" Born to honors, ease, and wealth, 
See him sacrifice them all ; 
Sacrificing, also, health, 
At his country's glorious call. 
What for thee, my friend, remains, 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

" Thus, with laurels on his brow, 
Belisarius begged for bread; 
Thus, from Carthage forced to go, 
Hannibal, an exile, fled. 
Alas, Fayette at once sustains 
Exile, poverty, and chains ! 

" Courage, child of Washington ! 
Though thy fate disastrous seems, 
We have seen the setting sun 
Rise and burn with brighter beams. 
Thy country soon shall break thy chain, 
And take thee to her arms again. 

Thy country soon shall break thy chain, 

And take thee to her arms again." 

William Bradford. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON AND JOHN JAY. 

It were, indeed, a bold task to venture to draw into compari- 
son the relative merits of Jay and Hamilton on the fame and 
fortunes of their country. In patriotic attachment equal, yet 
was that attachment far different in kind. With Hamilton it 
was a sentiment, with Jay a principle ; with Hamilton enthusi- 
astic passion, with Jay duty as well as love; with Hamilton 
patriotism was the paramount law, with Jay a law sub graviori 
lege. Either would have gone through fire and water to do 
his country a service, — Hamilton with the roused courage of 
the lion, Jay with the calm fearlessness of a man ; or rather, 
Hamilton's courage would have been that of the soldier, Jay's 
that of the Christian. Of the latter it might be truly said, — 



336 PATRIOTIC READER. 

"Conscience made him firm, 
That boon companion, who her strong breastplate 
Buckles on him that fears no guilt within, 
And bids him on, and fear not." 

In intellectual power, in depth, and grasp, and versatility of 
mind, as well as in all the splendid and brilliant parts which 
captivate and adorn, Hamilton was greatly, not to say im- 
measurably, Jay's superior. In the calm and deep wisdom of 
practical duty, — in the government of others, and, still more, 
in the government of himself, — in seeing clearly the right, and 
following it whithersoever it might lead, firmly, patiently, self- 
deniedly, Jay was again greatly, if not immeasurably, Hamilton's 
superior. 

Hamilton's mind had in it more of "constructive" power, 
Jay's of " executive." Hamilton had genius, Jay had wisdom. 
"We would have taken Hamilton to plan a government, and Jay 
to carry it into execution ; and, in a court of law, we would 
have Hamilton for our advocate, if our cause were generous, 
and Jay for judge, if our cause were just. 

Hamilton's civil official life was a brief and single, though 
brilliant, one. Jay's numbered the years of a generation, and 
exhausted every department of diplomatic, civil, and judicial 
trust. In fidelity to their country, both were pure to their 
hearts' core; yet was Hamilton loved, perhaps, more than 
trusted, and Jay trusted, perhaps, more than loved. 

Such were they in points of character. Their lives, when 
viewed from a distance, stand out in equally striking contrast. 
Jay's, viewed as a whole, has in it a completeness of parts, such 
as a nicer critic demands for the perfection of an epic poem, 
with its beginning of promise, its heroic middle, and its peace- 
ful end, and partaking, too, somewhat of the same cold stateli- 
ness, — noble, however, still and glorious, and ever pointing, as 
such poem does, to the stars, — sic itur ad astra. The life of Ham- 
ilton, on the other hand, is broken and fragmentary, begun in 
the darkness of romantic interest, running on into the sympathy 
of all high passion, and at length breaking off in the midst, like 
some half-told tale of sorrow, amid tears and blood, even as does 
the theme of the tragic poet. Hamilton had his frailties, arising 
out of passion, as tragic heroes have. Jay's name was faultless, 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 337 

and his course passionless, as becomes the epic leader, and, in 
point of fact, was, while living, a name at which frailty blushed 
and corruption trembled. 

If we ask, whence, humanly speaking, came such disparity of 
fate between equals, the stricter morals, the happier life, the 
more peaceful death, to what can we trace it but to the health- 
ful power of religion over the heart and conduct ? "Was not this 
the ruling secret ? Hamilton was a Christian in his youth, and 
a penitent Christian, we doubt not, on his dying bed ; but Jay 
was a Christian, as far as man may judge, every day and hour 
of his life. He had but one rule, the gospel of Christ ; in that 
he was nurtured, — ruled by that ; through grace he lived, — rest- 
ing on that, in prayer, he died. 

Admitting both names to be objects of our highest sympa- 
thetic admiration, yet with the name of Hamilton, as the master 
says of tragedy, the lesson is given "with pity and in fear." 
Not so with that of Jay ; with him we walk fearless, as in the 
steps of one who was a Christian, as well as a patriot. 

Francis Lister Hawks. 



JOHN ADAMS AND THOMAS JEFFERSON. 

(From Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, delivered at Faneuil Hall, 
August 2, 1826.) 

Adams and Jefferson are no more. On our fiftieth anniversary, 
the great day of national jubilee, in the very hour of public re- 
joicing, in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of thanks- 
giving, while their own names were on all tongues, they took 
their flight, together, to the world of spirits. 

As human beings, indeed, they are no more. But how little 
is there of the great and good which can die ! To their country 
they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates 
the remembrance of men on earth ; in the recorded proofs of 
their own great actions, in the offspring of their intellect, in 
the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect 
and homage of mankind. They live in their example ; and they 
22 



338 PATRIOTIC READER. 

live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which their 
lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, 
and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only 
in their own country, but throughout the civilized world. 

A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great 
man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary 
flame, burning bright for a while and then expiring, giving place 
to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat as 
well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass 
of human mind ; so that, when it glimmers, in its own decay, 
and finally goes out in death, no night follows ; but it leaves the 
world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own 
spirit. 

Bacon died ; but the human understanding, roused, by the 
touch of his miraculous wand, to a perception of the time phi- 
losophy, and the just mode of inquiring after truth, has kept on 
its course successfully and gloriously. Newton died ; yet the 
courses of the spheres are still known, and they yet move on, in 
the orbits which he saw, and described for them, in the infinity 
of space. 

No two men now live — perhaps it may be doubted whether 
any two men have ever lived, in one age — who, more than those 
we now commemorate, have impressed their own sentiments, in 
regard to politics and government, on mankind, infused their 
own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given 
a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. 
Their work doth not perish with them. The tree which they 
assisted to plant will flourish, although they water it and pro- 
tect it no longer; for it. has struck its roots deep; it has sent 
them to the very centre ; no storm, not of force to burst the 
orb, can overturn it ; its branches spread wide ; they stretch 
their protecting arms broader and broader, and its top is des- 
tined to reach the heavens. 

We are not deceived. There is no delusion here. No age will 
come in which the American Eevolution will appear less than it 
is, one of the greatest events in human history. No age will 
come in which it will cease to be seen and felt, on either conti- 
nent, that a mighty step, a great advance, not only in American 
affairs, but in human affairs, Avas made on the 4th of July, 1776. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 339 

And no age will come, we trust, so ignorant, or so unjust, as not 
to see and acknowledge the efficient agency of these we now 
honor, in producing that momentous event. 

Daniel Webster. 



THE COLLEAGUES OP JOHN ADAMS. 

(Extract from Eulogy of Adams and Jeiferson, delivered at Faneuil Hall, 
August 2, 1826.) 

It would be unjust on this occasion to omit a most respectful, 
affectionate, and grateful mention of those other great men, 
his colleagues, who stood with him, and, with the same spirit, 
the same devotion, took part in the interesting transaction. 
Hancock, the proscribed Hancock, exiled from his home by a 
military governor, cut off, by proclamation, from the mercy of 
the crown, for him Heaven reserved the distinguished honor of 
putting this great question to the vote, and of writing his name 
first, and most conspicuously, on that parchment which spoke in 
defiance to the power of the crown of England. 

There, too, is the name of that other proscribed patriot, Samuel 
Adams ; a man who hungered and thirsted for the independence 
of his country; who thought the Declaration halted and lingered, 
being himself not only ready, but eager for it, long before it was 
proposed ; a man of the deepest sagacity, the clearest foresight, 
and the profoundest judgment of men. 

And there is Gerry, himself among the earliest and the fore- 
most of the patriots, found, when the battle of Lexington sum- 
moned them to common councils, by the side of Warren ; a man 
who lived to serve his country at home and abroad, and to die 
in the second place in the government. 

There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the Spartan charac- 
ter, Eobert Treat Paine. He also lived to serve his country 
through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils only 
that he might give his labors and his life to his native State, in 
another relation. These names are the treasures of the Com- 
monwealth, and they are treasures which grow brighter by time. 

Daniel Webster. 



340 PATRIOTIC READER. 



DEATH OP JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 

(John Quincy Adams, on the 21st of February, 1848, while in his seat 
in the Capitol, was struck with paralysis, and died on the 23d of that month. 
His last words were, "This is the last of earth, — I am content." Of all 
the tributes to his memory, not one is more tender and just than that of 
Mr. Holmes, of South Carolina, delivered the week after his death.) 

ADDKESS. 

The mingled tones of sorrow, like the voice of many waters, 
have come unto us from a sister State, — Massachusetts, weep- 
ing for her honored son. The State, I in part represent, once 
endured with her a common suffering, battled for a common 
cause, and rejoiced in a common triumph. Surely, then, it is 
meet that in this, the day of her affliction, we should mingle 
our griefs. 

"When a great man falls, the nations mourn ; when a patriarch 
is removed, the people weep. Ours is no common bereavement. 
The chain which linked our hearts with the gifted spirits of 
former times has been suddenly snapped. The lips from which 
flowed those living and glorious truths that our fathers uttered, 
are closed in death. Yes, Death has been among us. He has 
not entered the humble cottage of some unknown, ignoble 
peasant ; he has knocked audibly at. the palace of a nation. 
His footstep has been heard in the halls of state. He has 
cloven down his victim in the midst of the councils of a peo- 
ple. He has borne from among you the gravest, wisest, most 
bonored head. Ah, he has taken him, as a trophy, who was 
once chief over many statesmen, adorned with virtue, and learn- 
ing, and truth ; he has borne at his chariot- wheels a renowned 
one of the earth. 

How often we have crowded into that aisle, and clustered 
around that now vacant desk, to listen to the counsels of wisdom 
as they fell from the lips of the venerable sage, we can all re- 
member; for it was but of yesterday! But what a change! 
How wondrous ! How sudden ! 'Tis like a vision of the night. 
That form which we beheld, but a few days since, is now cold in 
death. 

But the last Sabbath, and in this hall, he worshipped with 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 341 

others. Now his spirit mingles with the noble army of martyrs, 
and the just made perfect, in the eternal adoration of the liv- 
ing God. With him, " this is the end of earth." He sleeps the 
sleep that knows no waking. He is gone, and forever. The 
sun that ushers in the morn of that next holy day, while it gilds 
the lofty dome of the Capitol, shall rest with soft and mellow 
light upon the consecrated spot beneath whose turf forever lies 
the Patriot Father, and the Patriot Sage. 

Isaac Edward Holmes. 



CHARLES CARROLL OP CARROLLTON, THE LAST 
OF THE SIGNERS. 

Come to the window, old man. Come, and look your last 
upon this beautiful earth. The day is dying, the year is dying, 
you are dying; so light, and leaf, and life, mingle in one com- 
mon death, as they shall mingle in one resurrection. 

Clad in a dark morning gown that reveals the outline of his 
tall form, now bent with age, once so beautiful in its erect 
manhood, rises a man from his chair, which is covered with 
pillows, and totters to the window, spreading forth his thin 
white hands. Did you ever see an old man's face that combines 
all the sweetness of childhood with the vigor of mature intellect ? 
Snow-white hair, in waving flakes, around a high and open brow ; 
eyes that gleam with clear light ; a mouth moulded in an ex- 
pression of benignity, almost divine ! 

It is the 14th of November, 1832 ; the hour is sunset, and 
the man, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the Signers. 
Ninety-five years of age, a weak and trembling old man, he has 
summoned all his strength, and gone along the carpeted cham- 
ber, to the window, his dark gown contrasted with the purple 
curtains. He is the last! Of the noble fifty-six who, in the 
Revolution, stood forth, undismayed by the axe or the gibbet, 
their mission the freedom of an age, the salvation of a country, 
he alone remains. One by one the pillars have crumbled from 
the roof of the temple, and now the last, a trembling column, 
glows in the sunlight, as it is about to fall. 



342 PATRIOTIC REAPER. 

But, for the pillar that crumbles, there is no hope that it shall 
ever tower aloft in its pride again ; while for this old man, about 
to sink into the night of the grave, there is a glorious hope. 
His memory will live. His soul will live, not only in the pres- 
ence of God, but on the tongues and in the hearts of millions. 
The band in which he counts one, can never be forgotten. The 
last ! As the venerable man stands before us, the declining day 
imparts a warm flush to his face, and surrounds his brow with a 
halo of light. His lips move, without sound ; he is recalling the 
scenes of the Declaration; he is murmuring the names of his 
brothers in the good work. 

All gone but him ! Upon the woods, dyed with the rainbow 
of the closing year ; upon the stream, darkened by masses of 
shadow ; upon the home peeping out from among the leaves, falls, 
mellowing, the last light of the declining day. He will never 
see the sun rise again. He feels that the silver cord is slowly, 
gently loosening; he knows the golden bowl is crumbling, at 
the fountain's brink. But death comes on him as a sleep, as a 
pleasant dream, as a kiss from beloved lips. He feels that the 
land of his birth has become a mighty people, and thanks God 
that he was permitted to behold its blossoms of hope ripen into 
full life. 

In the recess, near the window, you behold an altar of prayer ; 
above it, glowing in the fading light, the image of Jesus seems 
smiling, even in agon}', around that death-chamber. The old 
man turns aside from the window. Tottering on, he kneels be- 
side the altar, his long dark robe drooping over the floor. He 
reaches forth his white hands, he raises his eyes to the face of 
the Crucified. There, in the sanctity of an old man's last prayer, 
we will leave him. There, where, amid the deepening shadows, 
glows the image of the Saviour ; there, whore the light falls 
over the mild face, the waving hair, and tranquil eyes of the 
aged patriarch ! 

The smile of the Saviour was upon that perilous day, the 4th 

of July, 1776 ; and now that its promise has brightened into 

fruition, He seems to smile, He does smile, again, even as His 

sculptured image meets the dying gaze of Charles Carroll of 

Carrollton, the last of the Signers. 

Gkorge Lippard. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 343 



DANIEL O'CONNELL. 

(The following is an extract from the O'Connell Centennial Address, de- 
livered by Wendell Phillips, at Boston, August 6, 1875. This address was 
subsequently written out in full by its eloquent author, and was republished 
in the Boston Pilot of February 16, 1884. The speech is without its equal, 
as an exponent of Mr. Phillips's views of human liberty, no less than as a 
just tribute to the subject of the address. It belongs to history as the dis- 
passionate estimate, by an extraordinary man, of Ireland's great liberator.) 

A hundred years ago to-day, Daniel O'Connell was born. The 
Irish race, wherever scattered, pay tribute to his memory, — to 
one of the most eloquent men, one of the most devoted patriots, 
and the most successful statesman which that race has given to 
history. We, of other races, may well join in that tribute, since 
the cause of constitutional government owes more to Mr. O'Con- 
nell than to any other political leader for the last two centuries. 
If to put the civil and social elements of your day into successful 
action, and plant the seeds of continued strength and progress for 
coming time ; if this is to be a statesman, then, most emphatically, 
he was one. To exert this control and secure this progress while, 
and because, ample means lie ready for use under your hand, does 
not rob Walpole and Colbert, Chatham and Richelieu, of their title 
to be considered statesmen. When Napoleon's soldiers bore the 
negro chief, Toussaint L'Ouverture, into exile,- he said, pointing 
back to San Domingo, "You think you have rooted up the tree 
of liberty. But I am only a branch. I have planted the tree so 
deep that ages will never root it up." O'Connell is the only Irish- 
man who can say as much of Ireland. He found her a mass of 
quarrelling races and sects, divided, dispirited, broken-hearted, 
and servile. He made her a nation ! His generous aid, thrown 
into the scale of the three great British reforms, the ballot, the 
corn laws, and slavery, secured their success. He ranks not with 
founders of States, like Alexander, Caesar, Bismarck, Napoleon, 
and William the Silent, but with men who, without arms, b}^ 
force of reason, have revolutionized their times, — with Luther, 
Jefferson, Mazzini, Samuel Adams, Garrison, and Franklin. G:frat- 
tan, with all the courage and more than the eloquence of his 
race ; Emmet in the field, Sheridan in the senate, and, above 



344 PATRIOTIC READER. 

all, Edmund Burke, whose name makes eulogy superfluous, gave 
their lives to Ireland ; and when the present century opened, 
where was she ? It was then that Daniel O'Connell gave fifty 
years to the service of his country ; and to-day, she is not only 
redeemed, but her independence put beyond doubt or peril. He 
created a public opinion and unity of purpose which make Ire- 
land a nation. 

Fifty or sixty years hence, when scorn of race has vanished, 
and bigotry lessened, it may be possible for Ireland to be safe 
while holding the position to England that Scotland does ; but 
during this generation, and the next, O'Connell was wise in claim- 
ing that Ireland's rights would never be safe without " Home 
Eule." His tireless patience was unexampled. That every man 
should be allowed freely to worship God according to his con- 
science, that no man's civil rights should be affected by his re- 
ligious creed, were both cardinal principles of O'Connell. I have 
no time to speak of his marvellous success at the bar; nor of 
his courage, that met every new question frankly; his entire- 
ness of devotion, that made the people feel that he was entirely 
their own ; that masterly brain, that made them always sure that 
they were safe in his hands ! 

When I consider O'Connell's personal disinterestedness; his 
rare, brave fidelity to every cause his principles covered, no 
matter how unpopular; that clear, far-reaching vision, and true 
heart, which on most moral and political questions set him so 
much ahead of his times; his eloquence, almost equally effec- 
tive in the courts, in the senate, and before the masses ; that 
sagacity, which set at naught the malignant vigilance of the 
whole Imperial bar, watching thirty years for a misstep ; when 
I see the sobriety and moderation with which he used his 
measureless power, and the lofty, generous purpose of his whole 
life, I am ready to affirm that ho was, all things considered, the 
greatest man the Irish race ever produced. 

Wkndell Phillips. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 345 

MARCO BOZZARIS. 

At midnight, in his guarded tent, 

The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, 

Should tremble at his power ; 
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
The trophies of a conqueror ; 

In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
Then wore his monarch's signet-ring, — 
Then pressed that monarch's throne — a king ; 
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 

As Eden's garden bird. 

At midnight, in the forest shades, 

Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, 
True as the steel of their tried blades, 

Heroes in heart and hand. 
There had the Persian's thousands stood, 
There had the glad earth drunk their blood, 

On old Platsea's day ; 
And now there breathed that haunted air 
The sons of sires who conquered there, 
With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 

As quick, as far as they. 

An hour passed on, — the Turk awoke ; 

That bright dream was his last ; 
He woke — to hear his sentries shriek, 
" To arms ! they come ! the Greek ! the Greek !" 
He woke — to die 'midst flame and smoke, 
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, 

And death-shots falling thick and fast 
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud, 
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 

Bozzaris cheer his band : 
" Strike — till the last armed foe expires, 
Strike — for your altars and your fires, 
Strike — for the green graves of your sires, 

God — and your native land !" 



346 PATRIOTIC READER. 

They fought — like brave men, long and well ; 

They piled that ground with Moslem slain ; 
They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 

Bleeding at every vein. 
His few surviving comrades saw 
His smile, when rang their proud hurrah, 

And the red field was won ; 
Then saw in death his eyelids close, 
Calmly, as to a night's repose, 

Like flowers at set of sun. 

Come to the bridal chamber, Death ! 

Come to the mother's, when she feels 
For the first time' her first-born's breath ; — 

Come when the blessed seals 
Which close the pestilence are broke, 
And crowded cities wail its stroke ; — 
Come in consumption's ghastly form, 
The earthquake's shock, the ocean storm ; — 
Come when the heart beats high and warm 

With banquet-song, and dance, and wine, — 
And thou art terrible ; the tear, 
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, 
And all we know, or dream, or fear, 

Of agony, are thine. 

But to the hero, when his sword 

Has won the battle for tbe free, 
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, 
And in its hollow tones are heard 

The thanks of millions yet to be. 
Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 

Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
Rest thee, — there is no prouder grave, 

Even in her own proud clime. 

We tell thy doom without a sigh ; 

For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, — 

One of the few, the immortal names 

That were not born to die. 

Fitz-Greene Halleck. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 347 

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 

The eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner of his exhibi- 
tion of his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intel- 
lectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. 
It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise ; sometimes im- 
passioned, still always severe. Eejecting ornament, not often 
seeking far for illustration, his power consisted in the plainness 
of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the 
earnestness and energy of his manner. These qualities enabled 
him, through such a long course of years, to speak often, and 
yet always command attention. His demeanor as a senator is 
known to us all, — is appreciated, venerated by us all. No man 
was more respectful to others ; no man carried himself with 
greater decorum ; no man with superior dignity. 

He had the basis, the indispensable basis, of all high char- 
acter; and that was, unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor 
and character. If he had aspirations, they were high, honor- 
able, and noble. There was nothing grovelling, or low, or 
meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. 
Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic and honest 
in the principles that he espoused, and in the measures that 
he defended, aside from that large regard for that species of 
distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the 
benefit of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive, 
or selfish feeling. 

However he may have differed from others in his political 
opinions, or his political principles, those principles and those 
opinions will now descend to posterity under the sanction of 
a great name. He is now an historical character. We shall 
hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a great recollection, that 
we have lived in his age, that we have been his contemporaries, 
that we have seen him, and heard him, and known him. We 
shall delight to speak of him to those who are rising up to fill 
our places. And when the time shall come when we ourselves 
shall go, one after another, in succession to our graves, we shall 
carry with us a deep sense of his genius and character, his 
honor and integrity, bis amiable deportment in private life, 
and the purity of his exalted patriotism. Daniel Webster. 



348 PATEIOTIC READER. 



HENRY CLAY. 

Henry Clay was the favorite son, the pride, the glory of 
Kentucky ; but his life for forty years has been, literally, that 
of his country. He was so identified with the government for 
forty years of its existence, that, during that time, hardly any 
act which has redounded to its honor, its present prosperity, 
its present rank among the nations of the earth, can be spoken 
of without calling to mind involuntarily the lineaments of his 
noble person. It would be difficult to determine whether in 
peace or war, in the field of legislation or of diplomacy, in the 
spring-tide of his life or in its golden ebb, he won the highest 
honor. In all the points of practical statesmanship, he encoun- 
tered no superior in any of the employments which his constitu- 
ents, or his country, conferred upon him. 

He was indebted to no adventitious circumstances for the suc- 
cess and glory of his life. Sprung from an humble stock, " he 
was fashioned to much honor from his cradle," and he achieved 
it by the noble use of the means which God and nature had 
given him. He was no scholar, and had none of the advantages 
of collegiate education. But there was a " divinity that stirred 
within him." This mighty genius was accompanied in him by 
all the qualities necessary to sustain its action and to make it 
most irresistible. 

His person was tall and commanding, and his demeanor 

" Lofty and sour to them that loved him not, 
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer." 

He was direct and honest, ardent and fearless, prompt to form 
his own opinions, always bold in their avowal, and sometimes 
impetuous, or even rash, in their vindication. In the perform- 
ance of his duties he feared no responsibility. He scorned all 
evasion or untruth. No pale thoughts ever troubled his decisive 
mind. " Be just and fear not" was the sentiment of his heart 
and the principle of his action. It regulated his conduct in 
private and public life ; all the ends he aimed at were his coun- 
try's, his God's, and truth's. 

Such was Henry Clay, and such were his talents, qualities, and 
objects. Nothing but success and honor could attend such a 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 349 

character. For nearly half a century he was an informing spirit, 
a brilliant and heroic figure, in our political sphere, marshalling 
our country in the way she ought to go. The great objects of 
his life were, to preserve and strengthen the Union ; to maintain 
the Constitution and laws of the United States ; to cherish in- 
dustry ; to protect labor ; and to facilitate, by all proper national 
improvements, the communication between all the parts of our 
widely-extended country. This was his " American system" of 
policy. With inflexible patriotism he pursued and advocated it, 
to his end. He was every inch an American. His heart, and all 
that there was of him, were devoted to his country, to its liberty, 
and its free institutions. He inherited the spirit of the Revolu- 
tion, in the midst of which he was born ; and the love of liberty 
and the pride of freedom were in him principles of action. As 
against the injurious designs of visionary politicians or party 
demagogues, he may be almost said to have been, during forty 
years, the guardian angel of the country. He never would 
compromise the public interest for anybody or for any personal 
advantage to himself. He was the advocate of liberty through- 
out the world, and his voice of cheering was raised in behalf 
of every people who struggled for freedom. Greece, awakened 
from a long sleep of servitude, heard his voice, and was re- 
minded of her own Demosthenes. South America, too, in her 
struggle for independence, heard his brave words of encourage- 
ment, and her fainting heart was animated and her arm made 
strong. 

Henry Clay is the fair exponent of the age in which he lived, 
an age which forms the greatest and brightest era in the history 
of man, and with its chivalrous and benignant spirit he was 
thoroughly imbued. He was indeed moulded by it, and made 
in its own image. When the storms of state beat around and 
threatened to overwhelm him, his exclamation was still heard, 
" Truth is mighty and public justice certain." His appeal was 
not in vain. What a magnificent and heroic figure does Henry 
Clay here present to the world ! The passions of party subsided, 
truth and justice resumed their sway, and his generous coun- 
trymen repaid him, for all the wrong they had done him, with 
gratitude, affection, and admiration, in his life, and tears for his 
death. He was ambitious, but in him, ambition was virtue. It 



350 PATRIOTIC READER. 

sought only the proper, fair objects of honorable ambition, and 
it sought these by honorable means only, by so serving the 
country as to deserve its favors. He was in the highest sense 
a great man ; but he has gone to join the mighty dead in another 
and better world. His fame, the memory of his benefactions, 
the lessons of his wisdom, all remain with us ; over these death 
has no power. 

Glorious as his life was, there was nothing that became him 
like the leaving it. Conscious of his approaching end, he pre- 
pared to meet it with all the resignation of a Christian hero. 
Patience, meekness, and gentleness shone round him like a mild, 
celestial light, breaking upon him from another world : 

" And, to add greater honors to his age 
Than man could give, he died, fearing God." 

John Jordan Crittenden. 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 
(From Address at the "Wehster Centennial, Boston, January 18, 1882.) 

It is but a poor tribute that I can pay, for Massachusetts, to 
her greatest statesman, her mightiest orator. For years he was 
her synonyme. With what matchless grandeur he defended her ! 
With what overwhelming power he impressed her convictions 
upon the national life ! It was the resistless logic of his discus- 
sion, the household familiarity of his simple but overmastering 
statement, the eloquence, clear as crystal, precipitated in the 
school-books and literature of our people, which had trained up 
the generation of twenty years ago to regard this nation as 
one, to love the flag with a patriotism which knew no faction 
or section, to be loyal to the whole country, and to find in its 
Constitution the power to suppress any hand or combination 
against it. 

A great man touches the heart of a people as well as their 
intelligence. They not only admire, they love him. It some- 
times seems as if they sought in him some weakness of our 
common nature, that they may chide, forgive, and thus endear 
him to themselves the more. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 351 

Massachusetts had her friction with the younger Adams, only 
to lay him away with profounder honor, and to remember him, 
devotedly, as the defender of the right of petition, and " the 
old man eloquent." She forgave the overweening confidence 
of Sumner, revoked her unjust censure, and points her youth 
to him as the unsullied patriot, without fear or reproach, who 
stood and spoke for equal rights. 

Massachusetts smote and broke the heart of her idol, "Webster, 
and then broke her own above his grave, but to-day writes his 
name highest upon her roll of statesmen. 

It seems disjointed to say that with such might as bis, the im- 
pression that comes from his silhouette upon the background of 
our history, is that of sadness, the sadness of his great deep eyes, 
the sadness of the lonely shore he loved, and by which he sleeps. 

The story of Webster from the beginning has the very pathos 
of romance. A minor chord runs through it, like the tenderest 
note in a song. What eloquence, to tears, is in that narrative 
which reveals in this giant of intellectual strength the heart, 
the single loving heart, of a child, as he describes a winter 
sleigh-ride through the New Hampshire hills, when his father 
told him that he should have a college education at whatever 
cost, and he could not speak, but only laid his head upon his 
father's shoulder and wept ! 

The greatness of Webster and his title to enduring grati- 
tude have impressive illustration. He taught the people of the 
United States, in the simplicity of common understanding, the 
principles of the Constitution and the government of our coun- 
try, and" wrought for them in a style of matchless strength and 
beauty the literature of statesmanship. From his lips flowed 
the discussion of constitutional law, of economic philosophy, of 
finance, of international right, of national grandeur, and of the 
whole range of high public themes, so clear and so judicial that 
it was no longer discussion, but judgment. To-day, and so will 
it be while the republic endures, the student and the legis- 
lator will draw from the fountain of his statements the enun- 
ciation of those principles. What other authority holds second, 
or even third place? His words have embedded themselves in 
our common phraseology, and they come to the tongue like pas- 
sages from the Psalms or the poets. Thus Webster made his 



352 PATRIOTIC REAPEi:. 

words the household words of a nation. They are the library of 
a people. They inspired and still inspire patriotism. They 
taught and still teach loyalty. They are the inwrought and 
accepted fibre of American politics. If the temple of our republic 
shall ever fall, they will " still live," like those foundation-stones 
of ancient ruins, which stand in lonely grandeur, unburied in 
the dust, making man to wonder from what rare quarry and 
by what mighty force they came. 

To Webster, almost more than to any other man, it is due to 
say, in the generous spirit of this occasion, that wherever a son 
of America, at home or abroad, "beholds the gorgeous ensign 
of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, 
still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their 
original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star 
obscured," he can utter a prouder boast than " Civis Eomanus 
sum" when he says, " I am an American citizen." 

John Davis Long. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 
(From Address in Faneuil Hall at the Sumner Memorial, March 12, 1874.) 

Charles Sumner has departed. It is too soon for his eulogy ; 
too soon for his history. Our minds are full of his living image. 
In character he was a moral hero. In learning and experience 
he was a model statesman, the great senator, always the friend 
of the oppressed and defenceless, the advocate of liberty for 
its own sake, and the tireless champion of human rights for 
all men. His forensic efforts had all the boldness and fervency 
of Chatham combined with the classic purity and elegance of 
Burke, whom in countenance he so strongly resembled. Through 
a long career the advocate of an unpopular cause, no man ever 
assailed the sincerity of his motives, the blamelessness of his 
life, or his stainless fidelity. Suspicion found no lodgement upon 
the guileless simplicity of his deeds. He despised duplicity, and 
revolted at everything that was dishonest. The good name of 
his native State was as dear to him as his own reputation, and 
in the discharge of his public trusts, his patriotism was the sure 
guardian of the national renown. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 353 

In the contemplation of such a character, how grand is justice, 
how radiant is truth, how lovable is fidelity, how inestimable is 
personal honor ! 

To a remarkable degree Mr. Sumner exhibited his life, as it 
were, in duplicate, for while engaged in the activities of his 
career, he seemed a historic personage. There was a breadth to 
his statesmanship which transcended the measure of his gener- 
ation, while the affluence of his learning supported it with ex- 
amples from the past, and pointed out the way of safety in the 
future. With comprehensive sagacity he discussed the philoso- 
phy of government in passing events, seized and acted upon re- 
sults he believed would be ultimately certain, long before they 
transpired, outran his time, and, when the world overtook him, 
he appeared to be living only what had been already recorded. 

He passed out of the world in the maturity of his manhood, 
and his deeds and example will live forever, as potential forces, 
in the veneration and gratitude of posterity. Thus, in this world, 
is his mortality swallowed up in life. 

His spirit has gone to that higher Congress above, where the 
noblest and purest of earth sit together, evermore, in the pres- 
ence and love of that Divine Father and Guide who is none 
other than the King of kings and the Lord of lords. O Grave, 
thou canst receive of the departed statesman only another clod 
of thy kindred dust ! O Death, thou art robbed of thy shining 
victory; for again the holy declaration is fulfilled, and this 
mortal hath put on immortality ! 

Alexander Hamilton Kice. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 
(From Memorial Address delivered in the U. S. Senate, March 12, 1874.) 

Mississippi regrets the death of Charles Sumner and sincerely 
unites in paying honors to his memory; not because of the 
splendor of his intellect, though in him was extinguished one 
of the brightest lights which have illustrated the councils of 
the government for nearly a quarter of a century ; not because 
of the high culture, the elegant scholarship, and the varied 
learning, which revealed themselves so clearly in all his public 
23 



354 PATRIOTIC READER. 

efforts as to justify the application to him of Johnsons felicitous 
expression, '• He touched nothing which he did not adorn," — 
not this, but because of those peculiar and strongly-marked 
moral traits of his character, which gave the coloring to the 
whole tenor of his singularly dramatic public career, making 
himself, to a part of his countrymen, the object of as deep and 
passionate hostility as to another he was one of enthusiastic 
admiration ; and which are not less the cause that unites all 
these parties, so widely different, in a common sorrow, to-day, 
over his lifeless remains. 

Charles Sumner was born with an instinctive love of freedom; 
and was educated, from his earliest infancy, to the belief that 
freedom is the natural and indefeasible right of every intel- 
ligent being having the outward form of man. In him, in 
fact, the creed seems to have been something more than a doc- 
trine imbibed from teachers, or a result of education. It was a 
grand intuitive truth, inscribed in blazing letters upon the tablet 
of his inner consciousness, to deny which would have been to 
deny that he himself existed ; and, along with this all-controlling 
love of freedom, he possessed a moral sensibility, keenlj* intense 
and vivid, — a conscientiousness which would never permit him 
to swerve, by the breadth of a hair, from what he pictured to 
himself as the path of duty. Thus were combined in him the 
characteristics which have, in all ages, given to religion her 
martyrs, and to patriotism her self-sacrificing heroes. 

Let me do this great man the justice which, amid the ex- 
citements of the struggle between the sections, now past, many 
have been disposed to deny him. In his fiery zeal, and his 
earnest warfare against the wrong, as he viewed it, there en- 
tered no enduring personal animosity towards the men whose 
lot it was to be born to the system which he denounced. It 
has been the kindness of his sympathy, which, in these later 
years, he has displayed to the impoverished and suffering people 
of the Southern States, that has unveiled to me the generous 
and tender heart which beat beneath the bosom of the zealot, 
and has forced me to yield him the tribute of my respect, I 
might say, even of my admiration. Xor, in the manifestation 
of this, has there been anything which a proud and sensitive 
people, smarting under a sense of recent discomfiture and 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 355 

present suffering, might not frankly accept, or which would give 
them just cause to doubt his sincerity. The spirit of magna- 
nimity, therefore, which breathes in his utterances and mani- 
fests itself in all his acts affecting the South, was as evidently 
honest as it was grateful to the feelings of those to whom it 
was displayed. 

It was certainly a gracious act towards the South, though 
it jarred upon the sensibility of the people at the other ex- 
treme of the Union, to propose to erase from the banners of the 
National Army the mementos of the bloody internal struggle, 
which might be regarded as assailing the pride, or wounding the 
sensibilities, of the Southern people. That proposal will never 
be forgotten by that people, so long as the name of Charles 
Sumner lives in the memory of man. But, while it touched 
her heart and elicited her profound gratitude, her people would 
not have asked of the North such an act of self-renunciation. 
Conscious that they themselves were animated by devotion to 
constitutional liberty, and that the brightest pages of history 
are replete with evidence of the depth and sincerity of that 
devotion, they can but cherish the recollections of the battles 
fought, and the victories won, in defence of a hopeless cause ; 
and, respecting, as all true and brave men must, the martial 
spirit with which the men of the North vindicated the integrity 
of the Union, and their devotion to the principles of human 
freedom, they do not ask, they do not wish the North to strike 
the mementos of heroism and victory from either records, mon- 
uments, or battle-flags. They would rather that both sections 
should gather up the glories won by each section, not envious, 
but proud of each other, and regard them as a common heritage 
of American valor. 

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 

Death sitteth in the Capitol ! His sable wing 
Hung its black shadow o'er a country's hope, 
And, lo ! a nation bendeth down in tears ! 
A few short weeks, and all was jubilee, — 



356 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The air was musical with happy sounds, — 
The future full of promise ; joyous smiles 
Beamed on each freeman's face, and lighted up 
The gentle eye of beauty. 

The Hero came, — a noble, good old man, — 
Strong in the wealth of his high purposes. 
Age sat upon him with a gentle grace, 
Giving unto his manhood dignity, 
Imbuing it with pure and lofty thoughts, 
As pictures owe their mellow hues to time. 
He stood before the people. Theirs had been 
The vigor of his youth, his manhood's strength ; 
And now his green old age was yielded up 
To answer their behest. 

Thousands had gathered round that marble dome, 
Silent and motionless in their deep reverence, 
Save when there gushed the heaving throb 
And low tumultuous breath of patriot hearts, 
Surcharged with grateful joy. The mighty dead 
Bent gently o'er him with their spirit wings, 
As solemnly he took the earthly state, 
Which flung its purple o'er his path to Heaven. 

The oath was said, and then one mighty pulse 
Seemed throbbing through the multitude, — 
Faces were lifted upward, and a prayer 
Of deep thanksgiving winged that vow to Heaven. 
In Heaven, the Hero answered it. 

Time slept on flowers, and lent his glass to Hope, — 
One little month his golden sands had sped, 
When, mingling with the music of our joy, 
Arose and swelled a low funereal strain, 
So sad and mournful that a nation heard, 
And trembled as she wept I 

Darkness is o'er the land, 

For, lo ! a death-flag streams upon the breeze. 

The Hero hath departed I 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 357 

Nay, let us weep. Our grief hath need of tears, — 

Tears should embalm the dead ; and there is one, 

A gentle woman, with her clinging love, 

Who wrung her heart that she might give him up 

To his high destiny. Tears are for her, — 

She knoweth not how low her heart is laid.* 

From battle-fields, where strife was fiercely waged, 

And human blood-drops fell a crimson rain, 

He had returned to her. God help thee, lady, 

Look not for him now ! 

Throned in a nation's love, he sunk to sleep, 

And so awoke in Heaven ! 

Ann Sophia W. Stephens. 



"ZACHABY TAYLOR. 

(Extracts from Memorial Sermon.) 

A man has fallen. I do not mean a mere male, human animal. 
I speak of that which God meant, when He said, " Let us make 
man in our image, after our likeness." A man, that has a mind 
and uses it. A man, that has a heart and yields to it. A man, 
that shapes his circumstances. A man, that cares not for him- 
self. A man, with the simplicity of a child. A man, with the 
directness of a child. A man, with the freshness and earnest- 
ness of a child. A man, in justice. A man, in generosity. A 
man, in magnanimity. A man, to meet emergencies. A man, to 
dare not only, but to bear. A man, of love. A man, without 
a fear. A thunder-bolt in war, a dew-drop in the day of peace. 
One that, against the fearful odds of five to one, could sway the 
battle-storm at Buena Yista, and then, from the very arms and 
lap of victory, write to one whose gallant son had died to make 
its crown, " When I miss his familiar face, I can say with truth 
that I feel no exultation in our success." Truly, a man "has 
fallen in Israel." And a great man has fallen, — great, in act. 
His masterly defence of Fort Harrison, when but a captain in 
the service, where the terrors of impending conflagration were 
added to the midnight onslaught of Indians ; his conduct of 

* Mrs. Harrison, then absent. 



358 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the war in Florida, against the same foe ; the gallant movement 
to Point Isabel, achieving Palo Alto and Eesaca de la Palma; 
the storming of Monterey; the crowning victory at Buena Yista, 
are glorious, but now painful reminiscences of the military 
career of him beside whose grave a nation weeps, to assure us 
that a great man has been taken from our Israel. 

And more illustrious even than in these, the greatness that 
knew how to bear such victories ; the greatness of moderation ; 
the greatness of modesty ; the greatness of self-conquest and 
control ; these do but wound our bleeding hearts more deeply, 
while they swell them with a fuller, higher admiration of the 
real greatness of the great man who has gone from us to-day. 

" General Taylor rises before us in all the glory of the hero, 
in all the majesty of the patriot, whose name and deeds are 
indelibly written on the tablet of the nation's gratitude." This 
is the true out-speaking of the heart when its deep pulses have 
been deeply touched. Such is the moral conquest of a man, 
wide as humanity in its extent. Such is the triumph which a 
great man, great in doing, or great in suffering, can achieve, 
beyond the lustre of all arms, beyond the splendor of all arts. 
Such is the true and real glory of the princes among men, — not 
of ancestral line, but that they rule in hearts ; that they are felt, 
as princes, among freemen ; and that, when they have passed from 
power and from life, men will stand up, and mourn as David 
mourned for Abner, and weep as David wept, and say as David 
said, and challenge all the world for a denial, " Know ye not that 
there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel ?" 

George Washington Doane. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

(Extracts from Funeral Sermon preached April 17, 1865.) 

Abraham Lincoln is dead. Probably no man since the days 
of Washington was ever so deeply and firmly enshrined in the 
very hearts of the American people. Nor was it a mistaken 
confidence and love. He deserved it well, and deserved it all. 
He is dead. But the memory of his virtues, of his wise and 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 359 

patriotic counsels and labors, of his calm and steady faith in God, 
lives, and will be a power for good in the country quite down to 
the end of time. 

He is dead, but the cause he so ardently loved, so ably and 
faithfully represented and defended, not for himself only, but 
for all people in all coming generations, — that cause survives his 
fall, and will survive it ; and the language of God's united provi- 
dence is telling us, that, though the friends of liberty may die, 
liberty itself is immortal. There is no assassin strong enough, 
and no weapon deadly enough, to quench its inextinguishable 
life, or arrest its onward march to the conquest and empire of 
the world. 

Our beloved President is slain ; but our beloved country is 
saved ; and so tears of gratitude mingle with those of sorrow. 
God be praised that our fallen chief lived long enough to see the 
day dawn, and the day-star of joy and peace arise upon the 
nation ! He saw it and was glad. Alas ! alas! he only saw the 
dawn. When the sun has arisen full-orbed and glorious, and a 
happy, reunited people are rejoicing in its light, it will shine 
upon his grave ; but that grave will be a precious and a conse- 
crated spot. The friends of liberty and of the Union will repair 
to it in years and ages to come, to pronounce the memory of 
its occupant blessed ; and, gathering from his very ashes, and 
from the rehearsal of his deeds and virtues, fresh incentives to 
patriotism, they Avill there renew their vows of fidelity to their 
country and their God. 

P. D. GURLEY. 



OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OP MORTAL BE 
PROUD ? 

(A favorite hymn with President Lincoln, and properly associated with his 
memory. ) 

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift-fleeing meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave. 



360 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around, and together be laid ; 
And the young and the old, and the low and the high, 
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. 

The infant a mother attended and loved ; 
The mother that infant's affection who proved ; 
The husband that mother and infant who blessed, — 
Each, all, are away to their dwellings at rest. 

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ; 
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn ; 
The eye of the sage ; and the heart of the brave, — 
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. 

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap ; 
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep ; 
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, — 
Have faded away, like the grass that we tread. 

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed 
That withers away, to let others succeed ; 
So the multitude comes, even those we behold, 
To repeat every tale that has often been told. 

For we are the same our fathers have been ; 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen ; 
"We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, 
And run the same course our fathers have run. 

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think ; 
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink 
To the life they are clinging they also would cling; 
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing. 

They loved ; but the story we cannot unfold ; 
They scorned ; but the heart of the haughty is cold ; 
They grieved; but no wail from their slumber will come; 
They joyed ; but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 361 

They died ; ay, they died ; we, things that are now, 

That walk on the turf that lies on their brow, 

And make in their dwellings a transient abode, 

Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. 

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, 
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, 
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death ; 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, — 
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 

William Knox. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 

(From Memorial Oration before both Houses of Congress, February 27, 1882.) 

Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle, in which the 
passions of men had been deeply stirred. Garfield was slain in 
a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, 
and when anger and hate had been banished from the land. 
From two sources, the English Puritan and the French Hugue- 
not, came the late President. It was good stock on both sides. 
There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manliness, of im- 
perishable love of liberty, of undying adherence to principle. 
His family, he said, were at Marston Moor, at Naseby, and at 
Preston ; they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Mon- 
mouth ; and in his own person had battled in the same great 
cause which preserved the Union of the States. General Garfield 
was a poor boy, in the same sense in which Henry Clay was a 
poor boy ; in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy ; in which 
Daniel Webster was a poor boy ; in the sense in which a large 
majority of the eminent men of America, of all generations, 
have been poor boys. The poverty of the frontier, where all 
are engaged in a common struggle, and where a common sym- 
pathy and hearty co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is 



362 PATRIOTIC READER. 

indeed no poverty. General G-arfield's youth presented no hard- 
ships which family love and family energy did not overcome, 
subjected him to no privations which he did not cheerfully ac- 
cept, and left no memories save those which were recalled with 
delight, and transmitted with profit and with pride. 

At eighteen years of ago he was able to teach school, and at 
the age of twenty-two to enter the Junior class of Williams 
College, and, receiving his diploma when twenty-four years of 
age, he seemed at one bound to spring into conspicuous success. 
Within six years he was president of a college, State senator of 
Ohio, major-general of the army, and representative-elect to the 
National Congress. A combination of honors so varied, within 
a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent 
or parallel in the history of the country. 

The great measure of Garfield's fame was filled by his service 
in the House of Representatives, which he entered but seven 
years from his college graduation. His military life, illustrated 
by honorable performance and rich in promise, was, as ho felt 
himself, prematurely terminated, and necessarily incomplete. 
As a lawyer, though admirably equipped for the profession, he 
can scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. As a par- 
liamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined, 
where the position had been chosen and the ground laid out, 
Garfield must be assigned a very high rank. 

In the beginning of his Presidential life, Garfield's experience 
did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. But while many of 
the executive duties were not grateful to him, he was assiduous 
and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset he 
exhibited administrative talent of a high order. With perfect 
comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, with a cool 
calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a 
generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be 
done towards restoring harmony between the different sections 
of the Union. He was an American in all his aspirations, and 
he looked to the destiny of the United States with the philo- 
sophic composure of Jefferson and the demonstrative confidence 
of John Adams. The religious element in Garfield's character 
was deep and earnest. Its crowning characteristic element was 
charity, liberality. In all things, he had charity. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 363 

On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a 
contented and happy man, — not in any ordinary degree, but 
joyfully, almost boyishly, happy. On his way to the railroad 
station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the 
beautiful morning, his talk was all in the grateful and gratula- 
tory vein. Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors 
or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning James A. 
Garfield may well have been a happy man. 

His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment 
he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peace- 
fully out before him. Tbe next he lay wounded, bleeding, help- 
less, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. 
Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. As the end 
drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. Gently, 
silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the 
longed-for hearing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should 
will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its 
manifold voices. Let us believe that in the silence of the re- 
ceding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther 
shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the 
eternal morning. 

James Gillespie Blaine. 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT. 
(From Address in Tremont Temple, Boston, October 22, 1885.) 

Another name is added to the roll of those whom the world 
will not willingly let die. Under a serene sky he laid down his 
life, and the nation wept. The path to his tomb is worn by the 
feet of innumerable pilgrims. The lips of slander are silent, and 
even criticism hesitates, lest some incautious word should mar 
the history of the modest, gentle, magnanimous warrior. The 
whole nation watched his passage through humiliating misfor- 
tunes with unfeigned sympathy ; the whole world sighed when 
his life ended. 

Grant entered into the sulphurous flames of war almost un- 
known. It was with difficulty that he could obtain a command. 



364 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Once set forward, Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, 
the- Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Petersburg, and Appomattox were 
his footsteps. In four years he had risen, without political favor, 
from the bottom, to the very highest command, not second to 
any living commander in any part of the world. 

For more than four years there were more than a million of 
men on each side, stretched out on a line of between one and 
two thousand miles, and a blockade rigorously enforced along a 
coast of an equal extent. During that time there were fought 
more than two thousand engagements, — two thousand two hun- 
dred and sixty-one, of record. Amid this sea of blood, there shot 
up great battles, that for numbers, fighting, and losses, will rank 
with the great battles of the world. 

When his work was done, this man of blood was as tender 
towards his late adversaries as a woman towards a son! He 
imposed no humiliating conditions, spared the feelings of his 
antagonists, sent home the disbanded Southern men with food, 
and horses for working their crops, and when a revengeful spirit 
in the executive chair showed itself, and threatened the chief 
Southern generals, Grant, with a holy indignation, interposed 
himself, and compelled his superior to relinquish his rash pur- 
pose. 

A man he was, without vices, with an absolute hatred of lies, 
and an ineradicable love of truth, of a perfect loyalty to friend- 
ship, neither envious of others nor selfish of himself. With a 
zeal for the public good unfeigned he has left to memory only 
such weaknesses as connect him with humanity, and such virtues 
as will rank him among heroes. 

The tidings of his death, long expected, gave a shock to the 
whole world. Governments, rulers, eminent statesmen, and 
scholars from all civilized nations, gave sincere tokens of sym- 
pathy. For the hour, sympathy rolled as a wave over the whole 
land. It closed the last furrow of war; it extinguished the last 
prejudice ; it effaced the last vestige of hatred ; and cursed be 
the hand that shall bring them back ! 

Johnston and Buckner (of the Confederates) on one side of 
his bier, and Sherman and Sheridan (of the Federals) upon the 
other, he has come to his tomb, a silent symbol that liberty had 
conquered slavery, and peace war. 



PATRIOTIC TRIBUTE TO EXEMPLAR LIVES. 365 

He rests in peace ! Xo drum or cannon shall disturb his 
slumber ! 

Sleep, hero, sleep, until another trumpet shall shake the 
heavens and the earth ! Then come forth to glory and im- 
mortality! Henry Ward Beechbr. 



VICTORIA OF ENGLAND. 

JUBILEE ODE. (1887.) 

Xot as our empress do we come to greet thee. 
August Victoria, 
On this auspicious Jubilee : 
Wide as Old England's realms extend. 

O'er earth and sea. — 
Her flag in every clime unfurled. 
Her morning drum-beat compassing the world. — 
Yet here her sway imperial finds an end. 
In our loved land of liberty ! 

Nor is it as our queen for us to hail thee. 
Excellent majesty. 
On this auspicious Jubilee : 
Long, long ago our patriot fathers broke 
The tie which bound us to a foreign yoke, 

And made us free ; 
Subjects thenceforward of ourselves alone, 
We pay no homage to an earthly throne, — 
Only to God we bend the knee ! 

Still, still, to-day and here, thou hast a part, 

Illustrious lady, 
In every honest Anglo-Saxon heart, 

Albeit untrained to notes of loyalty : 
As lovers of our old ancestral race. — 
In reverence for the goodness and the grace 

Which lend thy fifty years of royalty 
A monumental glory on the historic pasre. 
Emblazoning them forever, a* the Victorian Age, 



366 PATRIOTIC READER. 

For all the virtue, faith, and fortitude, 

The piety and truth, 
Which mark thy noble womanhood, 

As erst thy golden youth, — 
"We also would do honor to thy name, 
Joining our distant voices to the loud acclaim 

Which rings o'er earth and sea, 
In attestation of the just renown 
Thy reign has added to the British Crown ! 

Meanwhile, no swelling sounds of exultation 

Can banish from our memory, 

On this auspicious Jubilee, 
A saintly figure, standing at thy side, 
The cherished consort of thy power and pride, 
Through weary years the subject of thy tears, 

And mourned in every nation, — 
Whose latest words a wrong to us withstood, 
The friend of peace, — Albert, the wise and good. 

Robert Charles Winthrop. 



PART X. 

PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 



INTRODUCTION. 

It has become the high privilege of the American people, 
sinco the achievement of national independence, so to exemplify 
their capacity for self-government and a substantial civil and 
religious liberty, that the world has begun to recognize the 
rightful claim of all men to possess and enjoy similar liberty. 
Eeverdy Johnson, in his outlook over continental countries, 
where the fires kindled but were quickly smothered by the foul 
atmosphere of deadly license, said, — 

"To be free, man needs to know the value of freedom. The liberty suited 
to man's nature is liberty restrained by law ; and liberty, unrestrained, is 
dangerous licentiousness ; but a constitutional freedom, learned from our ex- 
ample, will secure all the blessings of human life, and give everything of 
power and true glory which belong to a civilized and Christian state." 

Henry Clay, in his memorable speech for suffering Erin in her 
hour of famine, tenderly spoke of 

"that Ireland, which has been, and, in all the vicissitudes of our national 
existence, our friend, and has ever extended to us her warmest sympathy," 

and of 

" those Irishmen who, on every battle-field, from Quebec to Monterey, have 
stood by us, shoulder to shoulder, and shared in all the perils and fortunes 
of the conflict." 

Daniel Webster, in a senatorial assertion of national sympathy 
for Greece, while distinctly disavowing an armed intervention, 
expressed the true value of the American example. His words 
are " like apples of gold in baskets of silver :" 

367 



368 PATRIOTIC READER. 



OUR OBLIGATIONS TO GREECE. 

"Are we to go to war? Certainly not. Then what is there within our 
power? Such reasoning mistakes the spirit of the age. The time has been, 
indeed, when fleets and armies and subsidies were the principal reliances even 
in the best cause. Happily for mankind, moral causes come into considera- 
tion. The public opinion of the civilized world is rapidly gaining an as- 
cendency over mere brute force. As it grows more intelligent and more 
intense, it will be more formidable. It may be silenced, but cannot be 
conquered. It is elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of 
ordinary warfare. It is that impassible, unextinguishable enemy of mere 
violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Milton's angels, 

' Vital in every part, 
Cannot, but by annihilating, die.' 

" Even in the midst of a conqueror's exultations, this enemy pierces his ear 
with the cry of injured justice; it denounces against him the indignation 
of an enlightened and civilized age ; it turns to bitterness the cup of his re- 
joicing, and wounds him with the sting which belongs to the consciousness 
of having outraged the opinion of mankind." 

Louis Kossuth invoked American sympathy, on the basis of 
Ihis assertion, that there could be " no permanent peace without 
(liberty." Still, peoples struggle ! Poland and Hungary, Swit- 
zerland and Italy, France and Ireland, as well as the African 
and the Indian, have been the theme of oratory and poetry in 
their behalf; until America, herself, rescued from an inherited, 
involuntary attitude of disloyalty to the principles of her emi- 
grant founders, is before the foot-lights, on the world's vast stage 
of human action, to vindicate her asserted freedom, and her right 
to stand as the adequate " torch, to enlighten the world." 

The grandest experiment, in behalf of enfranchised man, is 
intrusted to America. A race, " to the manor born," with no 
other native land, no other language, — instinctively religious, 
home-loving, and essentially patriotic, — is now to act its part as 
citizens. Severed manacles do not restore strength to the be- 
numbed freedman. The suddenly acquired wealth of liberty 
does not impart an intelligent sense of its value and its most 
beneficent uses. The struggle goes on, but still, a struggle, 
to attain, as best it can, a well-adjusted and rightly-tempered 
fruition. 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 369 

To the Southern States the difficulties are greater than the 
outside world can readily measure. Changes of property and 
relation, so radical, and all within a passing generation, affect 
society — especially the very old, and those who are just reach- 
ing maturity — in unnumbered ways, entirely beyond the com- 
prehension of those who do not personally experience the local 
force of such a change as only time can reconcile, or compen- 
sate. 

It is at such a crisis, of uncertain continuance, that all emo- 
tional sympathy for a freshly emancipated race will find its 
best deliverance through that patient fraternity of conference 
and action which will adjust entangled interests and secure 
genuine peace and kindly intercourse, without prejudice to any 
rights of the emancipated, or the impairment of the social 
and political integrity of a single Commonwealth of this great 
aggregate of States. 

Already many branches of the Christian Church realize this 
dawning issue, and make overtures for harmonious and fruit- 
ful action. Already the National Congress weighs its respon- 
sibility for that illiterac}^ which is the most prolific parent 
of vice and the deadliest foe of human liberty. Already it is 
felt, beyond the reach of partisan political action, that the 
moral constraint of a profound and discriminating charity is 
the true force that must wisely weld all sections and parties, 
in one supreme effort, to " see that the republic suffer no harm" 
while perfecting this great and costly enfranchisement. 



THE DOWNFALL OP POLAND. 

(1794.) 

O sacred Truth ! thy triumph ceased awhile, 
And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, 
"When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars 
Her whiskered pandoors and her fierce hussars, 
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn ; 
24 



370 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, 
Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man ! 

Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed, 

Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid : 

" Heaven !" he cried, " my bleeding country save I 

Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ? 

Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains. 

Eise, fellow-men ! our country yet remains ! 

By that dread name, we wave the sword on high, 

And swear for her to live, with her to die !" 

He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed 
His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed ; 
Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, 
Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ; 
Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly, 
" Eevenge, or death," — the watchword and reply ; 
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm ! 

In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few, 
Prom rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew : 
Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of Time, 
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime ; 
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe ! 
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career ; 
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, 
And Freedom shrieked — as Kosciusko fell. 

The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there ; 
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air. 
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, 
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ; 
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way, 
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! 
Hark ! as the mouldering piles with thunder fall, 
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call ! 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 371 

Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky, 
And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry ! 

O righteous Heaven ! ere Freedom found a grave, 
Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save ? 
Where was thine arm, Vengeance ! where thy rod, 
That smote the foes of Sion and of God ; 
That crushed proud Amnion, when his iron car 
Was yoked in wrath, and thundered from afar? 
Where was the storm that slumbered till the host 
Of blood-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast, 
Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow, 
And heaved an ocean on their march below ? 

Departed spirits of the mighty dead ! 

Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled ! 

Friends of the world! restore your swords to man, 

Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van ! 

Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, 

And make her arm puissant as your own ! 

Oh ! once again to freedom's cause return 

The patriot Tell, — the Bruce of Bannockburn! 

Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land ! shall see 
That man hath j^et a soul, and dare be free ! 
A little while, along thy saddening plains, 
The starless night of Desolation reigns ; 
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given, 
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of heaven! 
Prone to the dust, Oppression shall be hurled, 
Her name, her nature, withered from the world ! 

Thomas Campbell. 



HEROISM OP THE HUNGARIAN PEOPLE. 

(November 12, 1851.) 

Gentlemen have said that it was I who inspired the Hunga- 
rian people. I cannot accept the praise. No, it was not I who 
inspired the Hungarian people. It was the Hungarian people 



372 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

who inspired me. Whatever I thought, and still think, — what- 
ever 1 felt, and still feel, — is but the pulsation of that heart which 
in the breast of my people beats ! The glory of battle is for the 
historic leaders. Theirs, are the laurels of immortality. And 
yet, in encountering the danger, they knew that, alive or dead, 
their names would, on the lips of the people, forever live. How 
different the fortune — how nobler, how purer the heroism — of 
those children of the people, who went forth freely to meet death 
in their country's cause, knowing that where they fell they 
would lie, undistinguished and unknown, — their names unhon- 
ored and unsung! Animated, nevertheless, by the love of free- 
dom and fatherland, they went forth calmly, singing their na- 
tional anthems, till, rushing upon the batteries, whose cross-fire 
vomited upon them death and destruction, they took them, with- 
out firing a shot, — those who fell, falling with the shout, "Hurrah 
for Hungary !" And so they died by thousands — the unnamed 
demi-gods! Such is the people of Hungary. Still it is said, it is 
I who have inspired them. No ! — a thousand times, no ! It is 

they who have inspired me. 

Louis Kossuth. 



LIBERTY TO ATHENS. 

The flag of freedom floats once more 

Around the lofty Parthenon; 
It waves, as waved the palm of yore, 

In days departed long and gone ; 
As bright a glory from the skies 

Pours down its light around those towers, 
And once again the Greeks arise, 

As in their country's noblest hours; 
Their swords are girt in virtue's cause, 

Minerva's sacred hill is free, — 
Oh ! may she keep her equal laws, 

While man shall live and time shall be ! 

The pride of all her shrines went down ; 
The Goth, the Prank, the Turk, had reft 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 373 

The laurel from her civic crown ; 

Her helm by many a sword was cleft : 
She lay among her ruins low, — 

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose, 
And, crushed and bruised by many a blow, 

She cowered beneath her savage foes ; 
But now, again she springs from earth. 

Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks ; 
She rises in a brighter birth, 

And sounds redemption to the Greeks. 

It is the classic jubilee, — 

Their servile years have rolled away ; 
The clouds that hovered o'er them flee, 

They hail the dawn of freedom's day ; 
From heaven the golden light descends, 

The times of old are on the wing, 
And Glory, there, her pinion bends, 

And Beauty wakes a fairer spring ; 
The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves, 

Are all in triumph's pomp arrayed ; 
A light that points their tyrants' graves 

Plays round each bold Athenian's blade. 

James Gates Percival. 



THE IRISH INSURRECTION. 

(1844.) 

Sir, these topics are perilous ; but I do not fear to touch them. 
It is my thorough conviction that England would be able to put 
down any insurrectionary movement, with her gigantic force, 
even although maddened and frantic Ireland might be aided by 
calculating France. But at what a terrible cost of treasure and 
of life would treason be subdued ! Well might the Duke of 
Wellington, although familiar with fields of death, express his 
horror at the contemplation of civil wai\ War in Ireland would 



374 PATRIOTIC READER. 

be worse than civil. A demon would take possession of the 
nation's heart, — every feeling of humanity would be extin- 
guished, — neither to sex nor to age would mercy be given. The 
country would be deluged with blood ; and when that deluge bad 
subsided, it would be a sorry consolation to a British statesman, 
when he gazed upon the spectacle of desolation which Ireland 
would then present to him, that he beheld the spires of your 
Established Church still standing secure amidst the desert with 
which they would be encompassed. You have adjured us, in 
the name of the oath which we have sworn on the gospel of 
God, — I adjure you, in the name of every precept contained in 
that holy book, — in the name of that religion which is the per- 
fection of humanity, — in the name of every obligation, divine 
and human, as you are men and Christians, to save my country 
from those evils to which I point, and to remember, that if you 
shall be the means of precipitating that country into perdition, 
posterity will deliver its great finding against you, and that you 
will not only be answerable to posterity, but responsible to that 
Judge, in whose presence, clothed with the blood of civil war- 
fare, it will be more than dreadful to appear. But God forbid 
that these evils should ever have any other existence except 
in my own affrighted imaginings, and that those visions of dis- 
aster should be embodied in reality! God grant that the men to 
whom the destinies of England are confided by their sovereign 
may have the virtue and the wisdom to save her from those 
fearful ills that so darkly and so densely lower upon her ! For 
my own part, I do not despair of witnessing the time when 
Ireland will cease to be the battle-field of faction ; when our 
mutual acrimonies will be laid aside ; when our fatal antipathies 
will be sacrificed to the good genius of our country; and, so 
far from wishing for a dismemberment of this majestic empire, 
I would offer up a prayer, as fervent as ever passed from the 
heart to the lips of any one of you, that the greatness of that 
empire may be imperishable, and that the power, and the afflu- 
ence, and the glory, and, above all, the liberties of England may 
endure forever. 

KlCHARD LALOR SHEIL. 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 375 

HOME RULE FOR IRELAND. 

(From Speech in Parliament, February 16, 1888.) 

We have evidence before us to show that as regards the great 
objects which the government have had in view, of putting down 
the National League and the Plan of Campaign, their efforts 
have resulted in total failure. Such is the retrospect. What 
is the prospect ? There are many things said by the govern- 
ment in debate ; but I never heard them express a confidence 
that they will be able to establish a permanent resistance to 
the policy of Home Rule. You are happily free, at this moment, 
from the slightest shade of foreign complications. You have, at 
this moment, the constitutional assent of Ireland, pledged in the 
most solemn form, for the efficacy of the policy which I am 
considering. But the day may come when your condition may 
not be so happy. I do not expect, any more than I desire, these 
foreign complications, but still it is not wise to shut them wholly 
out. 

What I fear is rather this, that if resistance to the national 
voice of Ireland be pushed too far, those who now guide the 
mind of that nation may gradually lose their power, and may 
be supplanted and displaced by ruder and more dangerous 
spirits. For seven hundred years, with Ireland practically un- 
represented, with Ireland prostrate, with the forces of this 
great and powerful island absolutely united, you tried and 
failed to do that which you are now trying to do, with Ireland 
fully represented in your Parliament, with Ireland herself raised 
to a position which is erect and strong, and with the mind of 
the people so devoted, that, if you look to the elections of the 
last twelve months, you find that the majority of the people 
have voted in favor of the concession of Home Rule. 

If this is to continue, I would venture to ask gentlemen, oppo- 
site, under such circumstances as these, and with the experience 
you have, is your persistence in this system of administration, 
I will not say just, but is it wise, is it politic, is it hopeful, is it 
conservative? Now, at length, bethink yourselves of a change, 
and consent to administer, and consent finally to legislate for Ire- 
land and for Scotland in conformity with the constitutionally 



376 PATRIOTIC READER. 

expressed wishes and the profound and permanent convictions 
of the people ; and ask yourselves whether you will at last con- 
sent to present to the world the spectacle of a truly and not a 
nominally United Empire. 

William Ewart Gladstone. 



IRELAND NEAR THE GOAL. 
(From Address in Parliament, February 17, 1888.) 

All the speeches in support of the government have appeared 
to be more or less artfully designed to draw angry retorts from 
these benches. It is one of our national faults to be very ready 
to resent injustice, and a most generous use our opponents have 
made of that characteristic. The whole policy of our oppo- 
nents towards Ii*eland, and the whole object of the powerful 
London newspapers, seems to be to get at the worst side of Irish 
and of English character, and to sting and goad us into doing 
things which will put new life into national prejudices, that are 
expiring, in spite of you. 

Irishmen and Englishmen are becoming only too united for 
your purpose. Yours is a noble purpose ! Yours is a noble am- 
bition ! But you have failed in Ireland, and you will fail, I 
promise you, in this House, also. There was a time when we 
came here with our hand against every man's, and every man's 
against us. We expected no quarter, and, to the best of our 
ability, we gave none. It seemed to no purpose to struggle 
against the tremendous and cruel forces arrayed against us ; but 
that is all at an end, forever, — thanks to the right honorable 
member for Mid-Lothian [Mr. Gladstone]. 

We have come to this House no longer as enemies, among 
enemies. We count ourselves Ishmaelites no longer in this 
House, nor in this land of England. We are now among allies 
and friends who were not ashamed, nor afraid, to stand by our 
side, and by the side of our people, in many a bitter hour of trial 
and calumny, last year. We come here, now, among a people 
whose consciences, I believe, have been deeply stirred by the 
sufferings of our unfortunate people ; and though we are con- 
fronted by a hostile majority, callous to those sufferings, we 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 377 

know that that majority does not represent Scotland and Wales. 
We believe that it does not even represent England. It is a 
majority of men who, two years ago, were not ashamed to re- 
ceive their offices at the hands of the men whom they are now 
libelling in England and torturing in Ireland. We have no re- 
spect for that majority. I doubt whether, in their secret hearts, 
many of them have much respect for themselves. I know very 
well that they are extremely ill at ease. We believe that we are 
winning. The right honorable gentleman opposite (the Chief 
Secretary) has failed in Ireland. He has failed to smash our 
organization. He has failed to break the spirit of our people. 
He has failed to degrade us, I won't say in the eyes of our 
countrymen, for that would be absurd, but in the eyes of every 
honest man within these three realms. 

The right honorable member for Mid-Lothian has accom- 
plished, in two years, what seven hundred years of coercion 
had not accomplished previously, and what seven hundred more 
would leave unaccomplished still. He has united the hearts of 
the two peoples by a more sacred and enduring bond than that 
of terror and brute force; and our quarrel with England, and 
our bitterness towards England, is gone. It will be your fault 
and your crime if it ever return, — a crime for which posterity 
will stigmatize you forever. We, at all events, are not disrup- 
tionists. It is you who are the disruptionists and the separatists. 
We have never made a disguise of our feelings. We say what 
we mean. You are the separatists. We, are for peace and for 
happiness, and for the brotherhood of the two nations. Tou, 
are for eternal repression and eternal discord and eternal mis- 
ery, for yourselves as well as for us. We, are for appeasing the 
dark passions of the past. You, are for inflaming them, whether 
for purposes of a political character I do not know, but for pur- 
poses in the interest of that wretched class of Mamelukes whom 
you support in Ireland, who are neither good Englishmen nor 
good Irishmen, and who are being your evil genius in Ireland, 
just as they have been the scourge of our unhappy people. 

That is the state of things ; and in such a case, and between 
such forces, I believe the end is not far off, and to the God of 
justice, and of liberty, and of merc3% we leave the issue. 

"William O'Brien. 



378 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE AFRICAN CHIEF. 

Chained in the market-place he stood, 

A man of giant frame, 
Amid the gathering multitude 

That shrunk to hear his name, — 
All stern of look and strong of limb, 

His dark eye on the ground ; 
And silently they gazed on him, 

As on a lion bound. 

Vainly, but well, that chief had fought,- 

He was a captive now ; 
Yet pride, that fortune humbles not, 

Was written on his brow : 
The scars his dark broad bosom wore 

Showed warrior true and brave : 
A prince among his tribe before, 

He could not be a slave. 

Then to his conqueror he spake : 

" My brother is a king : 
Undo this necklace from my neck, 

And take this bracelet ring, 
And send me where my brother reigns, 

And I will fill thy hands 
With store of ivory from the plains, 

And gold-dust from the sands." 

" Not for thy ivory nor thy gold 

Will I unbind thy chain ; 
That bloody hand shall never hold 

The battle-spear again. 
A price thy nation never gave 

Shall yet be paid for thee ; 
For thou shalt be the Christian's slave, 

In land beyond the sea." 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 379 

Then wept the warrior chief, and bade 

To shred his locks away ; 
And, one by one, each heavy braid 

Before the victor lay. 
Thick were the plaited locks, and long, 

And deftly hidden there 
Shone many a wedge of gold among 

The dark and crisped hair. 

" Look, feast thy greedy eye with gold, 

Long kept for sorest need : 
Take it, — thou askest sums untold, — 

And say that I am freed. 
Take it, — my wife, the long, long day, 

"Weeps by the cocoa-tree, 
And my young children leave their play, 

And ask in vain for me." 

" I take thy gold, — but I have made 

Thy fetters fast and strong, 
And ween that by the cocoa shade 

Thy wife shall wait thee long." 
Strong was the agony that shook 

The captive's frame to hear, 
And the proud meaning of his look 

Was changed to mortal fear. 

His heart was broken, — crazed his brain, — 

At once his eye grew wild : 
He struggled fiercely with his chain, 

Whispered, and wept, and smiled ; 
Yet wore not long those fatal bands, 

And once, at shut of day, 
They drew him forth upon the sands, 

The foul hyena's prey. 

William Cullen Bryant. 



380 PATRIOTIC READER. 



MELANCHOLY PATE OF THE INDIANS. 

There is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate beings 
much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the so- 
briety of our judgment ; much which may be urged to excuse 
their atrocities ; much in their characters which betrays us into 
an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than 
their history ? 

Two centuries ago the smoke of their wigwams and the fires 
of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the 
farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. 
The shouts of victory and the war-dance rung through the moun- 
tains and the glades. The thick arrows and deadly tomahawk 
whistled through the forests ; and the hunter's trace, and the 
dark encampment, startled the wild beasts in their lairs. 

The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened 
to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their in- 
fants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. 
The aged sat down ; but they wept not. They should soon be at 
rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home 
prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men 
never lived ; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, 
and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of 
the human race. They shrunk from no dangers, and they feared 
no hardships. 

If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. 
They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. 
If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If 
their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were 
unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not 
on this side of the grave. But where are they? Where are 
the villages, and warriors, and youths ? The sachems and the 
tribes ? The hunters and their families ? They have perished. 
They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done 
tli is mighty work. No, — nor famine, nor war. There has been 
a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their 
heart-cores, — a plague, which the touch of the white man com- 
municated, — a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 381 

The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they 
may now call their own. 

Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for 
their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their mis- 
erable homes, " few and faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are 
cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round 
their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. 
The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but 
they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted 
villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. 
They shed no tears ; they utter no cries ; they heave no groans. 

There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There 
is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but 
of hard necessity, which stifles both ; which chokes all utter- 
ance ; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in 
despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. 
They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed 
by them, — no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an 
impassable gulf. They know, and feel, that there is, for them } 
still one remove farther, not distant nor unseen. It is to the 

general burial-ground of their race. 

Joseph Story. 



THE RED MEN OP ALABAMA. 

(From " Komantic Passages in Southwestern History," by the late Judge 
Meek, contributed, for the " Patriotic Reader," by Professor Benjamin F. 
Meek, of Alabama University.) 

The Red Men of Alabama, if properly reviewed, would be found to pre- 
sent more interesting facts and features, upon a more extended scale, than 
any other American tribes. The peculiarities which had ever invested the 
character of the Indian with so much romantic interest, making him the 
chosen child of fable and of song, were here exhibited in bolder relief than 
elsewhere. In numbers ; in the extent of their territories, all converging to 
the heart of our State ; in their wide and terrific wars; in intercourse and 
traffic with the whites ; in the mystery of their origin and migration ; in the 
arts, rude though they were, which gradually refine and socialize man ; in 
their political and religious forms, arrangements, and ceremonies; in mani- 
festations of intellectual power, sagacity, and eloquence ; and in all those 
strange moral phenomena, which marked " the stoic of the woods, the man 



382 PATRIOTIC READER. 

without a tear," — the native inhabitants of our soil surpassed all the other 
primitive nations north of Mexico. The study of their history is peculiarly 
our province, for they are indissolubly connected not only with the past, but 
the present and future, of the State. 

Yes, though they all have passed awa} r , — 

That noble race, and brave, — 
Though their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave, 
Though 'mid the forests where they roved 

There rings no hunter's shout, 
Yet their names are on our waters, 

And we may not wash them out. 

Their memory liveth on our hills, 

Their baptism on our shore, 
Our everlasting rivers speak 

Their dialect of yore. 
'Tis heard where Chattahoochee pours 

His yellow tide along ; 
It sounds on Tallapoosa's shores, 

And Coosa swells the song. 

Where lordly Alabama sweeps, 

The symphony remains, 
And young Catawba proudly keeps 

The echo of its strains ; 
Where Tuscaloosa's waters glide, 

From stream and town 'tis heard. 
And dark Tombigbee's winding tide 

Eepeats the olden word. 

Afar, where nature brightly wreathed 

Fit Edens for the free, 
Along Tuscumbia's bank 'tis breathed, 

By stately Tennessee ; 
And, south, where from Conecuh's Springs 

Escambia's waters steal, 
The ancient melody still rings, 

From Tensaw and Mobile. 

Alexander Beaufort Meek. 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 



THE RED MEN PASSING AWAY. 

(Close of Address before the British Association of Science, at Bristol, 
England, 1876.) 

In 1866, soon after occupying the Powder River country, and 
before the completion of any defences, I made peace with a band 
of Cheyennes, who were small in numbers, were hated by the 
Sioux, and thus were compelled to leave that region, or join the 
Sioux to resist the establishment of posts on the Big Horn and 
Yellowstone Rivers* I watched the departing Cheyennes, led 
by old White Horse, with hair white as snow, Black Bear, Dull 
Knife, Big Wolf, and The Man That Strikes Hard. They started 
for the Wind River Mountains. Their lodge-poles, laden with 
all their effects, dragged behind the ponies in slow procession. 
The squaws bent under the weight of dried game, skins, arrow- 
wood, and the supplies furnished from the post. Children were 
packed with all they could carry. The old men rode, or slowly 
trudged along in the middle of the train, compelled to keep 
up or be abandoned. They were going to seek new hunting- 
grounds ; leaving an Indian paradise, because the shadow of the 
advancing white man had fallen upon their trail. They were 
passing away. 

I have freely talked with Spotted Tail, Standing Elk, and a 
score and more of chiefs, who came to be fed and cared for, who 
sought peace, and sought it honestly ; and with all the flashes 
of pride and dignity which now and then brightened their 
actions, there was ever present that painful consciousness of 
their impending doom, which, as when the autumnal frosts 
strike their first blow at the vast wealth of a summer's crea- 
tion, compel the soul to breathe, half audibly, in its deep emo- 
tion, — Passing away. I have seen all ages, and both sexes, half 
naked, and yet reckless of exposure, fording the Platte, while 
ice ran fast, and mercury was below the zero-mark, for the single 



* This military movement was in violation of solemn treaties made in 1865, 
and the costly war succeeding was caused by the broken pledges of the 
United States. See Senate Ex. Doc. 33, Fiftieth Congress, First Session. 
Also, " Absaraka; or, Indian Operations on the Plains," fifth edition, pub- 
lished by J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 



384 PATRIOTIC READER. 

purpose of gathering from a post slaughter-house, to the last 
scrap, all offal, however nauseous, that they might use it in lieu 
of that precious game which our occupation was driving from 
its haunts. They, too, were passing away ! In the wild rage 
of battle, in the torturing test of the sun-dance, in the hour of 
defeat and the howl of victory, in the spirited hunt, and in the 
solemn council, — awake, asleep, in tepah, or on the prairie, — I 
have found them the same fate-defying, strong-willed, and pecu- 
liar race, — obdurate, steady, and self-possessed in all their moods, 
yet passing away. On a generous gift of food, I have been 
startled by being the centre of a circle of old women, whose 
song of thanksgiving, as with shrill screams and distorted faces 
they whirled and leaped, and sAvung their bodies, was more, as 
you might imagine, the rejoicing of fiends over some fresh soul 
lost, than as the expression of grateful hearts ; and I have seen 
the same wrinkled hags grinding the knife, the hatchet, and the 
arrow-head, with as apparent a relish as if alreadj^ they were 
drinking the life-blood of the white man. Here, too, in the 
absence of all that should give glory to woman, I read the ever- 
present premonition, — Passing away. We turn up the Ameri- 
can mounds, and in vain seek for some conclusive record as to 
the antecedents of the red men. We are upon the verge of the 
disappearance of the red man himself! 

Be it our part to strengthen the hands of those who would 
save the red man, so that the eternal disgrace of his extinction 
shall not attach to America, while Christianity is its strength 
and its glory. 



THE INDIAN WARRIOR'S LAST SONG. 

The wood is dyed with varied hue 

Of olive, blent with azure blue 

Of crescent sk}^ that, bending low, 

Has kissed the burnished autumn's glow ; 

And far beyond, the dark blue top 

Of Tuscarora's mountains prop 

The wide-extended sheet of sky, 

Where snow-winged cloudlets swiftly fly. 



PATRIOTIC SYMPATHY WITH STRUGGLING PEOPLES. 385 

The falling leaf has spread adown 
Upon the earth, in red and brown, 
A carpet of its own wild wealth ; 
Thereon, with steps of springing stealth, 
An Indian hunter bounds along, 
Unconscious of the blackbird's song ; 
Its melody falls cold and drear 
Upon his once retentive ear. 
His memory is with the past, 
Before the pale-faced warrior cast 
A cloud of gloom upon his race, — 
Had seized the red man's hunting-place, 
And cried, " These acres are my own, 
These woods belong to me, alone ; 
Towards the west now turn thy face, 
Where dwell a fierce and hostile race." 

A nameless horror racked his brain, 
A struggle with heart-gnawing pain : 
" Oh for the battle-cry again 
To ring throughout this fertile plain ! — 
To see the white man's wigwam burn, — 
To see his face still whiter turn 
As rings the dreadful shout for blood, 
From mount to mount, and wood to wood ! 
As shrieks his scalped and bleeding squaw, 
And turns his proud and fierce huzza 
To plaintive cries of frenzied woe, — 
To see, beneath the red man's blow, 
His children's life-blood freely flow ! 
Ah, that would pay for years of shame, 
Without a tribe, without a name, 
Could I again behold him die, 
Beneath our nation's arching sky ! 

" But ah, my warriors, where are ye ? 
Ye sleep beneath the greenwood tree ! 
The grass o'ergrows each silent grave ! 
Launched on the rapid, tideless wave, 
25 



386 PATRIOTIC READER. 

You've reached the happy hunting-land, 
Where we, the Spirit's favored band, 
Shall bend for evermore the bow 
And safely conquer every foe ! 

" Too long I linger here below ; 
I come, I come, ye warrior braves; 
I die upon your grass-grown graves !" 

J. Howard Wkkt. 



PART XI. 

PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 



INTRODUCTION. 

A few illustrative selections of popular appeal, during the 
struggle for liberty and country, mark the progressive patriotic 
sentiment, as the mere pride of country advanced towards its 
higher expression, in the gradual development of the law of 
peace as the true condition of a happy State and People. 



"ON, ON TO THE JUST AND GLORIOUS STRIPE." 

The following lines, by an unknown author, written at the time of the 
struggle of modern Greece for independence, in 1822, are in the spirit of 
patriotic aspiration : 

On, on to the just and glorious strife ! 

With your swords your freedom shielding: 
Nay, resign, if it must be so, even life, 

But die, at least, unyielding. 

On to the strife ! for 'twere far more meet 

To sink with the foes who bay you, 
Than crouch like dogs at your tyrants' feet, 

And smile on the swords that slay you. 

Shall the Pagan slaves be masters, then, 
Of the land which your fathers gave you ? 

Shall the infidel lord it o'er Christian men, 
When your own good swoz-ds may save you ? 

887 



388 PATRIOTIC READER. 

No ! let him feel that their arms are strong, 
That their courage will fail them never, 

Who strike to repay long years of wrong, 
And bury past shame forever. 

Let him know there are hearts, however bowed 
By the chains which he threw around them, 

That will rise, like a spirit, from pall and shroud, 
And cry " woe !" to the slaves who bound them. 

Let him learn how weak is a tyrant's might 
Against Liberty's sword contending ; 

And find how the sons of Greece can fight, 
Their freedom and land defending. 

Then on, then on to the glorious strife ! 

With your swords your country shielding ; 
And resign, if it must be so, even life, 
But die, at least, unyielding. 

Anonymous. 



REGULUS BEFORE THE SENATE OP CARTHAGE. 
(255 b.c.) 

Marcus Attilius Eegulus, an eminent Roman general, was 
taken prisoner near Carthage, 255 B.C., but sent to Rome to 
negotiate terms of peace and the interchange of prisoners of 
war on condition that in case of failure he would return to 
Carthage. In spite of the entreaties of the Roman Senate and 
his family, he protested against any terms of arrangement 
either degrading to Rome or holding life as an element in the 
settlement, and surrendered himself to the Senate of Carthage. 
Epes Sargent has given his supposed address before the Roman 
Senate. That before the Carthaginian Senate, by Kellogg, well 
describes the times and the character of the hero as preserved 
through tradition. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 389 

SUPPOSED SPEECH OF EEGULUS. 

The palaces and domes of Carthage were burning with the 
splendor of noon, and the blue waves of her harbor were rolling 
and gleaming in the gorgeous sunlight. An attentive ear could 
catch a low murmm* sounding from the centre of the city, which 
seemed like the moaning of the wind before a tempest. And 
well it might. The whole people of Carthage, startled, astounded 
by the report that Eegulus had returned, were pouring, a mighty 
tide, into the great square before the Senate-House. There were 
mothers in that throng whose captive sons were groaning in 
Eoman fetters ; maidens, whose lovers were dying in the distant 
dungeons of Borne ; gray-haired men and matrons, whom Eoman 
steel had made childless ; men who were seeing their country's 
life crushed out by Eoman power ; and with wild voices, cursing 
and groaning, the vast throng gave vent to the rage, the hate, 
the anguish, of long years. 

Calm and unmoved as the marble walls around him, stood 
Eegulus, the Eoman. He stretched his arm over the surging 
crowd with a gesture as proudly imperious as though he stood 
at the head of his own gleaming cohorts. Before that silent 
command the tumult ceased, — the half-uttered execration died 
upon the lip : so intense was the silence that the clank of the 
captive's brazen manacles smote sharp on every ear as he thus 
addressed them : 

" Ye doubtless thought, judging Eoman virtue by your own, 
that I would break my plighted faith rather than by returning, 
and leaving your sons and brothers to rot in Boman dungeons, 
to meet your vengeance. Well, I could give reasons for this re- 
turn, foolish and inexplicable as it seems to you ; — I could speak 
of yearnings after immortality, — of those eternal principles in 
whose pure light a patriot's death is glorious, a thing to be de- 
sired ; but, by great Jove, I should debase myself to dwell on such 
high themes to you. If the bright blood which feeds my heart 
were like the slimy ooze that stagnates in your veins, I should 
have remained at Bome, saved my life, and broken my oath. 
If, then, you ask why I have come back to let you work your 
will on this poor body, which I esteem but as the rags that cover 
it, enough reply for you, it is because I am a Boman. As such, 



390 PATRIOTIC READER. 

here in your very capital, I defy you. What I have done ye 
can never undo ; what ye may do I care not. Since first my 
young arm knew how to wield a Eoman sword, have I not 
routed your armies, burned your towns, and dragged your gen- 
erals at my chariot-wheels ? And do you now expect to see me 
cower and whine with dread of Carthaginian vengeance ? Com- 
pared to that fierce mental strife which my heart has just passed 
through at Rome, the piercing of this flesh, the rending of these 
sinews, would he but sport to me. 

" Venerable senators, with trembling voices and outstretched 
hands, besought me to return no more to Carthage. The gen- 
erous people, with loud wailing and wildly-tossing gesture, bade 
me stay. The voice of a beloved mother, her hands beating her 
breast, her gray hair streaming in the wind, tears flowing down 
her furrowed cheeks, praying me not to leave her in her lonely 
and helpless old age, is still sounding in my ears. Compared to 
anguish like this, the paltry torment you have in store is as the 
murmur of the meadow brook to the wild tumult of the moun- 
tain storm. Go ! Bring your threatened tortures I The woes 
I see impending over this fated city will be enough to sweeten 
death, though every nerve should tingle with its agony. I die, 
but mine shall be the triumph; yours, the untold desolation. 
For every drop of blood that falls from my veins your own shall 
flow in torrents. Woe unto thee, O Carthage ! I see thy homes 
and temples all in flames, thy citizens in terror, thy women wail- 
ing for the dead. Proud city, thou art doomed. The curse of 
Jove, a living, lasting curse, is on thee. The hungry waves 
shall lick the golden gates of thy rich palaces, and every brook 
run crimson to the sea. Rome, with bloody hand, shall sweep 
thy heart-strings, and all thy homes shall howl in wild response 
of anguish to her touch. Proud mistress of the sea, disrobed, 
uncrowned, and scourged, thus again do I devote thee to the 
infernal gods. 

"Now bring forth your tortures! slaves! While ye (ear this 
quivering flesh, remember how often Regulus has beaten your 
armies in the field and humbled your pride. Cut, as he would 
have carved you! Burn, deep as his curse I" 

Elijah Kellogg. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 391 

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA. 

(71 B.C.) 

Spartacus, a Thracian soldier, taken prisoner by the Romans 
and trained as a gladiator, escaped, and with his comrades waged 
war for the freedom of all slaves. He was killed in battle, in 
the year 71 b.c. 

THE APPEAL OF SPAKTACTJS. 

Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for 
twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man 
or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never 
yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say 
that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie 
my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in 
your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come 
on. And yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage 
chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old 
Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves 
of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which 
I sported ; and when, at noon. I gathered the sheep beneath the 
shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, thei-e was a friend. 
the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our 
flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal. 
One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated 
beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an 
old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in 
ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the moun- 
tains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what 
war was ; but my cheeks burned, 1 knew not why, and 1 clasped 
the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the 
hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and 
bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and 
savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. 
1 saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof 
of the war-horse ; the bleeding body of my father flung amidst 
the blazing rafters of our dwelling ! 

To-day I killed a man in the arena ; and, when I broke his 



392 PATRIOTIC READER. 

helmet-clasps, behold ! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled 
faintly, gasped, and died; the same sweet smile upon his lips 
that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled 
the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes and bear them home 
in childish triumph. I told the praetor that the dead man had 
been my friend, generous and brave ; and I begged that I might 
bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn 
over its ashes. Ay ! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood 
of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled 
maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and 
the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, 
to see Eome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight 
of that piece of bleeding clay I And the praetor drew back as I 
were pollution, and sternly said, " Let the carrion rot ; there are 
no noble men but Eomans!" And so, fellow-gladiators, must 
you, and so must I, die like dogs. O Eome ! Eome ! thou hast 
been a tender nurse to me. Ay ! thou hast given to that poor, 
gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than 
a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint ; taught him to 
drive a sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass 
and warm it in the marrow of his foe ; to gaze into the glaring 
eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laugh- 
ing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is 
red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies 
curdled ! 

Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! the strength of 
brass is in your toughened sinews ; but to-morrow some Eoman 
Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with 
his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon 
your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis 
three days since he tasted flesh ; but to-morrow he shall break 
his fast upon yours, and a dainty meal for him ye will be ! If 
ye are beasts, then stand here, like fat oxen waiting for the 
butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down your 
guard, gain the mountain-passes, and there do bloody work, as 
did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? is the old 
Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that ye do crouch and cower 
like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? comrades! 
warriors ! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 393 

If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors ! If we 

must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, 

in noble, honorable battle I 

Elijah Kellogg. 



GALGACUS TO THE CALEDONIANS. 

(A.D. 84.) 

The following is the rendering, by the late Epes Sargent, of 
the address delivered by the British general to his army, on the 
Grampian Hills, just before his total overthrow by Agricola. 
Tacitus gives the addi-ess of Agricola, up to the time when he 
was interrupted by the fierce onset of the British. 

APPEAL FOR FATHER-LAND. 

Beflecting on the origin of this war, and on the straits to 
which we are reduced, I am persuaded, O Caledonians, that to 
your strong hands and indomitable will is British liberty this 
day confided. There is no retreat for us if vanquished. Not 
even the sea, covered as it is by the Boman fleet, offers a path 
for escape. And thus war and arms, ever welcomed by the 
brave, are now the only safety of the cowardly, if any such 
there be. No refuge is behind us ; naught but rocks, and the 
waves, and the deadlier Bomans: men whose pride you have 
vainly tried to conciliate by forbearance, whose cruelty you 
have vainly sought to deprecate by moderation. The robbers 
of the globe; when the land fails, they scour the sea. Is the 
enemy rich, they are avaricious ; is he poor, they are ambitious. 
The East and the West are unable to satiate their desires. Wealth 
and poverty are alike coveted by their rapacity. To carry off, 
to massacre, to make seizures under false pretences, this they 
call empire ; and when they make a desert, they call it peace ! 

Do not suppose that the prowess of these Bomans is equal to 
their lust. They have thrived on our divisions. They know 
how to turn the vices of others to their own profit. Casting off 
all hope of pardon, let us exhibit the courage of men to whom 
salvation and glory are equally dear. Nursed in freedom as we 



394 PATRIOTIC READER. 

have been, unconquered and unconquerable, let us, in the first 
onset, show tbe usurpers what manner of men they are that 
Old Caledonia shelters in her bosom ! All the incitements to 
victory are on our side. Wives, parents, children, — these we 
have to protect ; and these the Eomans have not. They have 
none to cry shame upon their flight ; none to shed tears of exul- 
tation at their success. Few in numbers, fearful from ignorance, 
gazing on unknown forests and untried seas, the gods have de- 
livered them, hemmed in, bound and helpless, into our hands. 
Let not their showy aspect, their glitter of silver and gold, 
dismay you. Such adornments can neither harm nor protect 
from harm. In the veiy line of the enemy we shall find friends. 
The Britons, the Gauls, the Germans, will recognize their own 
cause in ours. Here is a leader ; here an army ! There are trib- 
utes, and levies, and badges of servitude, — impositions, which 
to assume, or to trample underfoot forever, lies now in the 
power of your arms. Forth, then, Caledonians, to the field ! 
Think of your ancestors ! Think of your descendants ! 

Tacitus : Life of Agricola, chap, xxx.-xxxii. 



ALFRED THE GREAT TO HIS MEN. 

(a.d. 894.) 

My friends, our country must be free ! The land 

Is never lost that has a son to right her, — 

And here are troops of sons, and loyal ones! 

Strong in her children should a mother be : 

Shall ours be helpless, that has sons like us? 

God save our native land, whoever pays 

The ransom that redeems her! Now, what wait we? 

For Alfred's word to move upon the foe ? 

Upon him, then ! Now think ye on the things 

You most do love! — husbands and fathers, on 

Their wives and children ; lovers, on their beloved ; 

And all, upon their country! When you use 

Your weapons, think on the beseeching eyes, 

To whet them could have lent you tears for water I 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 395 

Oh, now be men, or never ! From your hearths 

Thrust the unbidden feet, that from their nooks 

Drove forth your aged sires, your wives and babes ! 

The couches, your fair-handed daughters used 

To spread, let not the vaunting stranger press, 

Weary from spoiling you ! Your roofs, that hear 

The wanton riot of the intruding guest, 

That mocks their masters, — clear them for the sake 

Of the manhood to which all that's precious clings, 

Else perishes. The land that bore you — oh, 

Do honor to her ! Let her glory in 

Your breeding ! Eescue her ! Eevenge her, — or 

Ne'er call her mother more ! Come on, my friends, 

And where you take your stand upon the field, 

However you advance, resolve on this, 

That you will ne'er recede, while from the tongues 

Of age, and womanhood, and infancy, 

The helplessness, whose safety in you lies, 

Invokes you to be strong ! Come on ! Come on ! 

I'll bring you to the foe ! And when you meet him, 

Strike hard ! Strike home ! Strike, while a dying blow 

Is in an arm ! Strike, till you're free, or fall ! 

Arranged from J. S. Knowles by Epes Sargent. 



WILLIAM TELL'S ADDRESS TO THE SWISS. 

(a.d. 1307.) 

(Adapted by Epes Sargent from Schiller's " William Tell.") 

Confederates, listen to the words which God 

Inspires my heart withal. Here we are met 

To represent the general weal. In us 

Are all the people of the land convened. 

Then let us hold the Diet, as of old, 

And as we're wont in peaceful times to do. 

The time's necessity be our excuse, 

If there be aught informal in this meeting. 



396 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Still, wheresoe'er men strike for justice, there 

Is God ; and now beneath His heaven we stand. 

The nations round us bear a foreign yoke, 

For they have yielded to the conqueror. 

Nay, e'en within our frontiers may be found 

Some that owe villein service to a lord, — 

A race of bonded serfs, from sire to son. 

But we, the genuine race of ancient Swiss, 

Have kept our freedom, from the first, till now. 

Never to princes have we bowed the knee. 

What said our fathers when the Emperor 

Pronounced a judgment in the Abbey's favor 

Awarding lands beyond his jurisdiction? 

What was their answer? This : " The grant is void. 

No Emperor can bestow what is our own ; 

And if the Empire shall deny us justice, 

We can, within our mountains, right ourselves." 

Thus spake our fathers ; and shall we endure 

The shame and infamy of this new yoke, 

And from the vassal brook what never king 

Dared, in the fulness of his power, attempt ? 

This soil we have created for ourselves, 

By the hard labor of our hands ; we've changed 

The giant forest, that was erst the haunt 

Of savage bears, into a home for man ; 

Blasted the solid rock ; o'er the abyss 

Thrown the firm bridge for the wayfaring man. 

By the possession of a thousand years, 

The soil is ours. And shall an alien lord, 

Himself a vassal, dare to venture here, 

On our own hearths insult us, and attempt 

To forge the chains of bondage for our hands, 

And do us shame on our own proper soil ? 

Is there no help against such wrong as this ? 

Yes ! there's a limit to the despot's power. 

When the oppressed looks round in vain for justice, 

When his sore burden may no more be borne, 

With fearless heart he makes appeal to Heaven, 

And thence brings down his everlasting rights, 



PATEIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 397 

Which there abide, inalienably his, 

And indestructible as are the stars. 

.Nature's primeval state returns again, 

Where man stands hostile to his fellow-man, 

And, if all other means shall fail his need, 

One last resource remains, — his own good sword. 

Our dearest treasures call to us for aid 

Against the oppressor's violence ; we stand 

For country, home, for wives, for children, here ! 



ADDRESS OF ROBERT BRUCE. 

(June 24, a.d. 1314.) 

At Bannockburn the English lay, 
The Scots they werena far away, 
But waited for the break o' day 
That glinted in the east. 

But soon the sun broke through the heath, 
And lighted up that field o' death, 
When Bruce, wi' saul-inspiring breath, 
His heralds thus addressed : 

" Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled ! 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led ! 
Welcome to your gory bed, 

Or to glorious victory ! 

" jNow's the day, and now's the hour; 
See the front o' battle lour ; 
See approach proud Edward's power — 
Edward I chains and slavery I 

" Wha will be a traitor knave, 
Wha can fill a coward's grave, 
Wha sae base as be a slave, 

Traitor ! coward ! turn and flee ! 



398 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

" AVha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
Caledonian ! on wi' me ! 

" By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 

But they shall be — shall be free ! 

" Lay the proud usurpers low 1 
Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
Liberty's in every blow ! 

Forward ! let us do or die !" 

Robert Burns. 



RIENZI'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. 
(a.d. 1347.) 

Nicola Gabrini, known as Colas di Rienzi, a transient re- 
former, became Tribune of Bome through wonderful energy in 
behalf of the people, and is thus referred to in Byron's " Childe 

Harold :" 

" Redeemer of dark centuries of shame, — 
The friend of Petrarch, — hope of Italy, — 
Rienzi I last of Romans I" 

ADDRESS. 
Friends, 
I come not here to talk. Ye know too well 
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves! 
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
A race of slaves ! He sets, and his last beam 
Falls on a slave ; not such as, swept along 
By the full tide of power, the conqueror led 
To crimson glory and undying fame ; 
But base, ignoble slaves, — slaves to a horde 
Of petty tyrants, feudal despotsl lords 
Rich in some dozen paltry villages, — 
Strong in some hundred spearmen, — only great 
In that strange spell — a name. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 399 

Each hour, dark fraud, 
Or open rapine, or protected murder, 
Cry out against them. But this very day, 
An honest man, my neighbor, — there he stands, — 
Was struck, struck like a dog, by one who wore 
The badge of Ursini ; because, forsooth, 
He tossed not high his ready cap in air, 
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts, 
At sight of that great ruffian. Be we men, 
And suffer such dishonor, — men, and wash not 
The stain away in blood ? Such shames are common : 
I have known deeper wrongs. 

I, that speak to ye, 
I had a brother once, a gracious boy, 
Full of gentleness, of calmest hope, 
Of sweet and quiet joy, — there was the look 
Of Heaven upon his face, which limners give 
To " the beloved disciple." How I loved 
That gracious boy ! — younger by fifteen years, 
Brother at once and son ! He left my side ; 
A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, — a smile 
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour 
The pretty, harmless boy was slain ! I saw 
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried 
For vengeance ! 

Rouse ye, Romans ! — Rouse ye, slaves ! 
Have ye brave sons ? — Look in the next fierce brawl 
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters ? — Look 
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained, 
Dishonored; and if ye dare call for justice, 
Be answered by the lash. Yet this is Rome, 
That sat on her seven hills, and, from her throne 
Of beauty, ruled the world ! Yet we are Romans ! 
Why, in that elder day to be a Roman 
Was greater than a king! And once again, — 
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread 
Of either Brutus ! — once again, 1 swear, 
The eternal city shall be free ; her sons 
Shall walk with princes ! Mary Pvussell Mitfokd. 



400 PATRIOTIC READER. 

ARNOLD VON WINKELRIBD AT THE BATTLE OP 
SEMPACH. 

(a.d. 1386.) 

" Make way for liberty I" he cried, — 
Made way for liberty, and died ! 

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, 

A living wall, a human wood ; 

Impregnable their front appears, 

All horrent with projected spears. 

Opposed to these, a hovering band 

Contended for their native land, 

Peasants whose new-found strength had broke 

From manly necks the ignoble yoke, 

And forged their fetters into swords, 

On equal terms to fight their lords ; 

Marshalled once more at Freedom's call, 

They came to conquer or to fall. 

And now the work of life and death 

Hung on the passing of a breath ; 

The fire of conflict burned within ; 

The battle trembled to begin ; 

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground, 

Point for attack was nowhere found ; 

Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed, 

The unbroken line of lances blazed ; 

That line 'twere suicide to meet, 

And perish at their tyrants' feet. 

How could they rest within their graves, 

And leave their homes the haunts of slaves? 

Would they not feel their children tread 

With clanging chains above their head ? 

It must not be ; this day, this hour, 
Annihilates the oppressor's power! 
All Switzerland is in the field, 
She will not fly ; she cannot yield. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 401 

She must not fall ; her better fate 
Here gives her an immortal date. 
Few were the numbers she could boast, 
But every freeman was a host, 
And felt as 'twere a secret known 
That one should turn the scale alone, 
While each unto himself was he 
On whose sole arm hung Victory. 

It did depend on one, indeed ; 

Behold him, — Arnold Winkelried ! 

There sounds not to the trump of Fame 

The echo of a nobler name. 

Unmarked he stood amid the throng, 

In rumination deep and long, 

Till you might see, with sudden grace, 

The very thought come o'er his face, 

And by the motion of his form 

Anticipate the bursting storm ; 

And by the uplifting of his brow 

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how. 

But 'twas no sooner thought than done, — 
The field was in a moment won 1 

" Make way for liberty I" he cried, 
Then ran, with arms extended wide, 
As if his dearest friend to clasp ; 
Ten spears he swept within his grasp. 

" Make way for liberty !" he cried ; 
Their keen points met from side to side ; 
He bowed amongst them like a tree, 
And thus made way for liberty. 

Swift to the breach his comrades fly, — 
" Make way for liberty !" they cry, 
And through the Austrian phalanx dart, 
As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart, 
26 



402 PATRIOTIC READER. 

While, instantaneous as his fall. 
Bout. ruin, panic, scattered all. 
Au earthquake could not overthrow 
A city with a surer blow. 

Thus Switzerland again was free : 
Thus death made way for liberty ! 



Jambs Montgomery 



HENRY V. TO HIS TROOPS. 
^a.b. IT??. ) 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more 

Or close the wall up with our English dead. 

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man 

As modest stillness and humility ; 

But when the blast of war blows in our ears. 

Then imitate the action of the tiger: 

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. 

lMs<xuise fair nature with hard-favored rage: 

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect: 

Let it pry through the portage of the head. 

Like the brass cannon : let the brow o'erwhelm it. 

As fearfully as doth a galled rock 

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base. 

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. 

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide. 
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit 
To his full height ! On. on. you noble English ! 
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof: 
Eathers. that, like so many Alexanders. 
Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought. 
And sheathed their swords for lack ot argument : 
Be ropy now to men ot' grosser blood, 
And teach them how to war! 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 403 

And you, good yeomen, 
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here 
The mettle of your pasture ; let us swear 
That you are worth your breeding: which I doubt not; 
For there is none of you so mean and base, 
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. 
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, 
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot : 
Follow your spirit ; and upon this charge, 
Cry — God for Harry! England! and Saint George! 

William Shakespeare. 



GUSTAVUS VASA TO THE SWEDES. 
(a.d. 1521.) 

Upon the usurpation of the Swedish throne by Christiern II. 
of Denmark, a.d. 1519, Gustavus fled to the mountains of Dale- 
carlia. He redeemed his country by great valor, was crowned 
in 1527, and died in 1559, greatly beloved by his people. 

Are ye not marked, ye men of Dalecarlia, 

Are ye not marked by all the circling world, 

As the last stake ? What but liberty, 

Through the famed course of thirteen hundred years, 

Aloof hath held invasion from your hills, 

And sanctified their name ? And will ye, will ye 

Shrink from the hopes of the expecting world, 

Bid your high honors stoop to foreign insult, 

And in one hour give up to infamy 

The harvest of a thousand years of glory? 

Die all first ! Yes, die by piecemeal ! 

Leave not a limb o'er which a Dane can triumph ! 

Now from my soul I joy, I joy, my friends, 

To see ye feared ; to see that even your foes 

Do justice to your valor! There they are, 

The powers of kingdoms, summed in yonder host, 

Yet kept aloof, yet trembling to assail ye, 



404 PATRIOTIC READER. 

And oh ! when I look round and see you here, 
Of number short, but prevalent in virtue, 
My heart swells high, and burns for the encounter, 
True courage but from opposition grows ; 
And what are fifty, what a thousand slaves, 
Matched to the virtue of a single arm 
That strikes for liberty ? that strikes to save 
His fields from fire, his infants from the sword, 
And his large honors from eternal infamy? 
What doubt we, then ? Shall we, shall we stand here ? 
. Let us on ! 

Firm ai-e our hearts, and nervous are our arms ; 
With us truth, justice, fame, and freedom close, 
Each, singly, equal to a host of foes. 

Henry Brooke. 



STORY OF LOGAN, A MINGO CHIEF. 
(a.d. 1774.) 

In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery and murder were 
committed on an inhabitant of the frontiers of Virginia by two 
Indians, of the Shawanese tribe. The neighboring whites, ac- 
cording to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a 
summary way. Colonel Cresap, a man infamous for the many 
murders he had committed on those much injured people, col- 
lected a party, and proceeded down the Kanhaway in quest of 
vengeance. 

Unfortunately, a canoe of women and children, with one man 
only, was seen coming from the opposite shore, unarmed, and 
unsuspecting any hostile attack from the whites. Cresap and' 
his party concealed themselves on the bank of the river ; and the 
moment the canoe reached the shore, singled out their objects, 
and, at one fire, killed every person in it. 

This happened to be the family of Logan, who had long been 
distinguished as the friend of the whites. This unworthy return 
provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized himself in 
the war which ensued. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 405 

In the autumn of the same year, a decisive battle was fought 
at the mouth of the Great Kanhaway, between the collected 
forces of the Shawanese, Mingoes, and Delawares, and a detach- 
ment of the Yirginia militia. The Indians were defeated, and 
sued for peace. 

Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants ; 
but, lest the sincerity of a treaty should be distrusted, from which 
so distinguished a chief absented himself, he sent by a messen- 
ger the following speech, to be delivered to Lord Dunmore : 

" I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's 
cabin hungry, and he gave him no meat ; if ever he came cold 
and naked, and he clothed him not. During the last long and 
bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for 
peace. 

" Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen 
pointed as they passed by, and said, Logan is the friend of white 
men. I had even thought to have lived with you, had it not 
been for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last spring, 
in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of 
Logan, not even sparing my women and children. 

" There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living 
creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it ; I 
have killed many ; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For 
my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace ; but do not harbor 
a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. 

" He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there 
to mourn for Logan ? Not one." 

Thomas Jefferson. 



GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN'S ADDRESS. 

(June 17, 1775.) 

Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves I 
Will ye give it up to slaves ? 
Will ye look for greener graves ? 
Hope ye mercy still ? 



406 PATRIOTIC READER. 

What's the mercy despots feel ? 
Hear it in that battle peal ! 
Read it on yon bristling steel ! 
Ask it, ye who will. 

Fear ye foes who kill for hire ? 
Will ye to your homes retire ? 
Look behind you ! they're afire ! 

And, before you, see 
Who have done it ! From the vale 
On they come ! — and will ye quail ? 
Leaden rain and iron hail 

Let their welcome be ! 

In the God of battles trust ! 

Die we may, and die we must ; 

But, oh, where can dust to dust 

Be consigned so well, 

As where heaven its dews shall shed 

On the martyred patriot's bed, 

And the rocks shall raise their head, 

Of his deeds to tell ? 

John Pierpont. 



GENERAL FRANCIS MARION'S ADDRESS AFTER 
SUPPRESSING MUTINY. 

(a.d. 1780.) 

When, gentlemen, shall we catch the spirit of our profession? 
— the spirit of men fighting for a Republic, a Commonwealth 
of brothers, — that government most glorious, where God alone 
is king, that government most pleasant, where men make and 
obey their own laws, and that government most prosperous, 
where men, reaping as they sow, feel the utmost stimulus to 
every virtue that can exalt the human character and condition. 

This government, the glory of the earth, has ever been the 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 407 

desire of the wise and good of all nations. For this the Platos 
of Greece, the Catos of Borne, the Tells of Switzerland, the 
Sidneys of England, and the Washingtons of America, have 
sighed and reasoned, have fought and died. In this grand army, 
gentlemen, we are now enlisted ; and are combating under the 
same banners with those most excellent men of the earth. 
Then let self-gratulation gladden our every heart, and swell 
each high-toned nerve. With such worthies by our side, with 
such a cause before our eyes, let us move on with joy to the 
battle, and charge like the honored champions of God and 
human rights. 

But in the moment of victory, let the supplicating enemy 
find us as lovely in mercy as we are terrible in valor. Our 
enemies are blind. They neither understand nor desire the 
happiness of mankind. Ignorant, themselves, as children, they 
claim our pity for themselves. And as to their widows and 
little ones, the very thought of them should fill our souls with 
tenderness. The crib that contains their corn, the cow that 
gives them milk, the cabin that shelters their feeble heads from 
the storm, should be sacred in our eyes. "Weak and helpless as 
they are, still they are the nurslings of Heaven, — our best inter- 
cessors with the Almighty. Let their prayers ascend up before 
God in our behalf, and Cornwallis and Tarleton shall yet flee 
before us like frightened wolves before the well-armed shepherds. 

Francis Marion. 



CHARLOTTE CORDAY. 

(a.d. 1793.) 

Marie Anne Charlotte d'Armans, known to history as Char- 
lotte Corday, in deliberate imitation of Judith, who is described 
in the Apocryphal Books of the Bible to have slain the Assyrian 
king Holofernes, killed Jean Paul Marat, in his own house in 
Paris, July, 1793. She left a farewell appeal to the people of 
France, which is endorsed as genuine by Alphonse Lamartine, 
the eminent French historian, poet, patriot, and scholar. It 
deserves a place with the last words of Bobespierre, who, in spite 



408 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of his association with Danton and Marat, had real sympathy 
with liberty, as the innate right of man. Marat has no friends. 
Charlotte Corday sacrificed herself to rid her country of a mon- 
ster. History will honor her patriotism, and rather wonder at 
its intensity than too sharply judge its expression. 

ADDRESS TO FRENCHMEN FRIENDLY TO THE LAWS AND 
PEACE. 

How long, unhappy Frenchmen ! will you delight in trouble 
and division ? Too long have the factions and villains substi- 
tuted the interest of their ambition in the place of the general 
interest. Wiry, victims of their fury, should you destroy your- 
selves to establish the tyranny they desire on the ruins of 
France ? Factions break out on every side ; a few monsters, 
bathed in our blood, lead these detestable plots. "We are labor- 
ing at our own destruction with more zeal and energy than we 
ever employed in the conquest of liberty. O Frenchmen ! but 
a brief space, and nothing will remain but the recollection of 
your existence. 

Frenchmen, you know your enemies. Eise ! march ! France ! 
thy repose depends upon the' execution of the laws. I do not 
infringe them by killing Marat. Condemned by the universe, 
he is beyond the pale of the law. What tribunal will condemn 
me? If I am guilty, so was Alcides when he destroyed the 
monsters. 

O my country ! thy misfortunes rend my heart. I can only 
offer thee my life ; and I thank Heaven that I am at liberty to 
dispose of it. No one will be a loser by my death. I desire that 
my last sigh may be useful to my fellow-citizens, — that I may be 
the last victim, and that tho universe may declare that I have 
merited well at the hands of humanity. And I declare that if 
my conduct were viewed in another light, I should care but little. 

" Qu'a l'univers surpris cette grande action 
Soit un objet d'horreur, ou d'admiration, 
Mon esprit, peu jaloux de vivre en la memoire, 
Ne considere point le reproche ou la gloire ; 
Toujours independant et toujours citoyen, 
Mon devoir me suffit, tout le reste n'est rien. 
Allez, ne songez plus, qu'a sortir de l'esclavage I" 



PATEIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 409 

My parents and friends should not be molested. Wo one was 
acquainted with my plans. I join my baptismal register to this 
address, to show of what the weakest hand is capable when 
aided by the most entire devotion. If I do not succeed in my 
enterprise, Frenchmen, I have shown you the way. You know 
your enemies. Arise, — march ! Strike them ! 

From Lamartine's Girondists, vol. iii. 



THE LAST SPEECH OP ROBESPIERRE. 

(a.d. 1794.) 

The enemies of the Republic call me tyrant ! Were I such, 
they would grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with gold, 
— I should grant them impunity for their crimes, — and they 
would be gi-ateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished, 
far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty 
support. There would be a covenant between them and me. 
Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny, — 
whither does their path tend ? To the tomb, and to immortality! 
What tyrant is my protector ? To what faction do I belong ? 
Yourselves ! What faction, since the beginning of the Revolu- 
tion, has crushed and annihilated so many detected traitors? 
You — the people, — our principles — are that faction! — a faction 
to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism 
of the day is banded ! 

The confirmation of the Republic has been my object ; and I 
know that the Republic can be established only on the eternal 
basis of morality. Against me, and against those who hold 
kindred principles, the league is formed. My life ? Oh ! my 
life I abandon without a regret ! I have seen the Past ; and 1 
foresee the Future. 

What friend of his country would wish to survive the moment 
when he could no longer serve it, — when he could no longer 
defend innocence against oppression ? Wherefore should I con- 
tinue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs 
over truth ; where justice is mocked ; where passions the most 



410 PATRIOTIC READER. 

abject, or fears the most absurd, override the sacred interests 
of humanity? In witnessing the multitude of vices which the 
torrent of the Revolution has rolled in turbid communion with 
its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes feared that I 
should be sullied, in the eyes of posterity, by the impure neigh- 
borhood of unprincipled men, who had thrust themselves into 
association with the sincere friends of humanity ; and I rejoice 
that these conspirators against my country have now, by their 
reckless rage, traced deep the line of demarcation between them- 
selves and all true men. 

Question history, and learn how all the defenders of liberty, 
in all times, have been overwhelmed by calumny. But their 
traducers died also. The good and bad disappear alike from 
the earth ; but in very different conditions. O Frenchmen ! O 
my countrymen ! let not your enemies, with their desolating 
doctrines, degrade your souls and enervate your virtues ! No, 
Chaumette, no ! Death is not " an eternal sleep !" Citizens ! 
efface from the tomb that motto, graven by sacrilegious hands, 
which spreads over all nature a funeral crape, takes from op- 
pressed innocence its support, and affronts the beneficent dis- 
pensation of death ! Inscribe rather thereon these words : 
" Death is the commencement of immortality !" I leave to the 
oppressors of the people a terrible testament, which I proclaim 
with the independence befitting one whose career is so nearly 
ended : it is the awful truth, " Thou shaft die I" 

From Translation by Epes Sargent. 



RELIGIOUS DISTINCTIONS BEHIND THE AGE. 
(From Address in Parliament, a.d. 1796.) 

Gentlemen say the Catholics have got everything but seats 
in Parliament. Are we really afraid of giving them that privi- 
lege? Are we seriously afraid that Catholic venality might 
pollute the immaculate integrity of the House of Commons ? — 
that a Catholic member would be more accessible to a promise, 
or a pension, or a bribe, than a Protestant ? Lay your hands 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 411 

upon your hearts, look in one another's faces, and say Yes, and 
I will vote against this amendment. But is it the fact that they 
have everything? Is it the fact that they have the common 
benefit of the Constitution, or the common protection of the law ? 
Another gentleman has said, the Catholics have got much, 
and ought to be content. Why have they got that much? Is it 
from the minister? Is it from the Parliament which threw 
their petition over its bar ? No ! they got it by the great revo- 
lution of human affairs ; by the astonishing march of the human 
mind ; a march that has collected too much momentum, in its 
advance, to be now stopped in its progress. The bark is still 
afloat; it is freighted with the hopes and liberties of millions of 
men; she is already under way; the rower may faint, or the 
wind may sleep, but, rely upon it, she has already acquired an 
energy of advancement that will support her course and bring 
her to her destination; rely upon it, whether much or little 
remains, it is now vain to withhold it ; rely upon it, you may 
as well stamp your foot upon the earth, in order to prevent its 
revolution. You cannot stop it ! You will only remain a silly 
gnomon upon its surface, to measure the rapidity of rotation, 
until you are forced round and buried in the shade of that body 
whose irresistible course you would endeavor to oppose ! 

John Philpot Curban. 



UNION WITH ENGLAND NOT IRELAND'S CHOICE. 
(From Address in Parliament, a.d. 1800.) 

The minister misrepresents the sentiments of the People, as 
he has before traduced their reputation. He asserts that, after 
a calm and mature consideration, they have pronounced their 
judgment in favor of an Union. Of this assertion not one syl- 
lable has any existence in fact, or in the appearance of fact. I 
appeal to the petitions of twenty-one counties in evidence. To 
affirm that the judgment of a nation against is for ; to assert 
that she has said ay when she has pronounced no ; to make the 
falsification of her sentiments the foundation of her ruin and 
the ground of the Union ; to affirm that her Parliament, Con- 



412 PATRIOTIC READER. 

stitution, liberty, honor, property, are taken away by her own 
authority, — there is, in such artifice, an effrontery, a hardihood, 
an insensibility, that can best be answered by sensations of 
astonishment and disgust. 

The Constitution may be for a time so lost. The character of 
the country cannot be so lost. The ministers of the Crown will, 
or may, perhaps, at length find that it is not so easy, by abili- 
ties however great, and by power and corruption however irre- 
sistible, to put down forever an ancient and respectable nation. 
Liberty may repair her golden beams, and with redoubled heat 
animate the country. The cry of loyalty will not long continue 
against the principles of liberty. Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, 
and a capacious principle ; but in these countries, loyalty, distinct 
from liberty, is corruption, not loyalty. 

The cry of disaffection will not, in the end, avail against the 
principle of liberty. I do not give up the country. I see her 
in a swoon ; but she is not dead. Though in her tomb she lies 
helpless and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, 
and on her cheek a glow of beauty : 

" Thou art not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet 
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, 
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there." 

While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave 
her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail, and carry the light 
bark of his faith with every new breath of wind ; I will remain 
anchored here, with fidelity to the fortunes of my country, 
faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall ! 

Henry Grattan. 



EMMET'S VINDICATION. 
(a.d. 1803.) 

I am asked if I have anything to say why sentence of death 
should not be pronounced upon me. A man in my situation has 
not only to combat with the difficulties of fortune, but with the 
difficulties of prejudice. The sentence consigns his character to 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 413 

obloquy. That mine may not forfeit all claim to the respect of 
my countrymen, I vindicate myself from some of the charges 
advanced against me. I am accused of being an emissary of 
France. 'Tis false ! I do not wish to deliver my country to 
any foreign power, and least of all to France. I did not create 
the rebellion for France, but for Liberty. God forbid I Small 
would be our claim to patriotism and sense, and palpable our 
affectation of love of liberty, if we were to encourage the profa- 
nation of our shores by a people who are slaves themselves 
and the unprincipled instruments of imposing slavery on others. 
Let not any man attaint my memory by believing that I could 
have betrayed the sacred cause of Liberty by committing it to 
her most determined foe. Had I done so, I had not deserved to 
live ! Am I, who lived but to be of service to my country, — who 
resigned for that service the worship of another idol I adored, 
and would subject myself to the bondage of the grave to give 
her independence, — to be loaded with this foul and grievous 
calumny ? 

You, my lord, sit there, as a judge, and I stand here, as a cul- 
prit ; yet, you are a man, and I am another. I have a right, 
therefore, to vindicate my character and motives, and as a man, 
to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of 
that life to rescue my name and memory from that imputation. 
Did I live to see a French army approach this country, I would 
meet it on the shore, with a torch in one hand and a sword in 
the other. I would receive them with all the destruction of war. 
I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their very 
boats, before our native soil should be polluted by a foreign foe. 
If they succeeded in landing, I would burn every blade of grass 
before them, raze every house, contend to the last for every inch 
of ground, and the last spot in which the hope of freedom should 
desert me, that spot I would make my grave. 

But, my lord, I acted as an Irishman, to deliver my country 
from the yoke of a foreign tyranny, and the more galling yoke 
of a domestic faction. It was the wish of my heart to extricate 
my country from this doubly riveted despotism, to place her 
independence beyond the reach of any power on earth, to exalt 
her to that proud station in the world which Providence has 
fitted her to fill. Robert Emmet. 



414 PATRIOTIC READER. 

ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG MEN OP ITALY. 

(a.d. 1848.) 

(Extract from translation by Epes Sargent of Mazzini's address at Milan 
"in memory of the brothers Bandiera and their fellow-martyrs," who were 
executed, by the Austrian government, in 1844, for revolutionary attempts.) 

CLOSE OF ADDRESS. 

Love ! Love is the flight of the soul towards God ; towards 
the great, the sublime, and the beautiful, which are the shadow 
of God upon earth. Love your family; the partner of your 
life; those around you, ready to share your joys and sorrows; 
the dead, who were dear to you, and to whom you were dear. 
Love your country. It is your name, your glory, your sign 
among the peoples. Give to it your thought, your counsel, your 
blood. You are twenty-four millions of men, endowed with 
active, splendid faculties ; with a tradition of glory, the envy of 
the nations of Europe ; an immense future is before you ; your 
eyes are raised to the loveliest heaven, and around you smiles 
the loveliest land, in Europe ; you are encircled by the Alps and 
the sea, boundaries marked out by the finger of God for a people 
of giants. And you must be such, or nothing. Let not a man 
of that twenty-four millions remain excluded from the fraternal 
bond which shall join you together; let not a look be raised to 
that heaven, which is not that of a free man. Love humanity. 
You can only ascertain your own mission from the aim placed 
by God before humanity at large. Beyond the Alps, beyond 
the sea, are other peoples, now fighting, or preparing to fight, 
the holy fight of independence, of nationality, of liberty ; other 
peoples striving by different routes to reach the same goal. 
Unite with them, — they will unite with you. 

And love, young men, love and reverence the Ideal ; it is the 
country of the spirit, the city of the soul, in which all are 
brethren who believe in the inviolability of thought, and in the 
dignity of our immortal natures. From that high sphere spring 
the principles which alone can redeem the peoples. Love en- 
thusiasm, — the pure dream of the virgin soul, and the lofty 
visions of early youth ; for they are the perfume of Paradise, 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 415 

which the soul preserves in issuing from the hands of its Creator. 
Bespect, above all things, your conscience ; have upon your lips 
the truth that God has placed in your hearts ; and, while work- 
ing together in harmony in all that tends to the emancipation 
of our soil, even with those who differ from you, yet ever bear 
erect your own banner, and boldly promulgate your faith. 

Such words, young men, would the martyrs of Cosenza have 
spoken, had they been living among you. And here, where, 
perhaps, invoked by our love, their holy spirits hover near us, 
I call upon you to gather them up in your hearts, and to make 
of them a treasure amid the storms that yet threaten you, but 
which, with the names of our martyrs on your lips, and their 
faith in your hearts, you will overcome. 

God be with you, and bless Italy ! 

Giuseppe Mazzini. 



JUSTICE TO IRELAND. 
(a.d. 1843.) 

Here I am calling for justice to Ireland. In the pride of your 
strength here, you may mock the Irish and the desire they cherish 
to the heart's core for a separate legislature, but in so doing you 
make little allowance for that nationality, among others, by 
which you yourselves are so greatly distinguished. You pride 
yourselves in the name of Englishmen, and so you ought ; and 
if anything happened to tarnish or obscure the glory of that 
character, you would rather die than let your sons endure it 
for a single moment. 

And nationality with us is equally warm. That alone would 
make us look for a separate legislature, and indulge in the in- 
spiration of hope for the restoration of the glory which has 
been lost to us for ages. Yes, this is the feeling which lives and 
breathes in Ireland ; and I have animated that feeling as far as 
I could, — and why ? Because I saw there was no hope of ob- 
taining justice from England ; because, twenty-nine years after 
the Union, Ireland was no longer a province, but a pitiful colony 
of this country. 

You have not done us justice. We look back to the pages of 



416 PATRIOTIC READER. 

history, and we find that you never did so. I defy you to put 
your hand, at any one period, upon any one act of yours which 
was an act of justice to Ireland. When I speak of you, I speak 
of the English government in Ireland. You encouraged faction 
from the beginning, when the differences on account of religion 
were yet confined to a few Englishmen within the pale, and a 
few Irishmen out of it. 

And when these differences became more formidable, you 
reared the sacred standard of God ; with uplifted eyes, in Scrip- 
ture phraseology you exclaimed, " The sword of the Lord and 
of Gideon." You passed the " Shibboleth ;"* you marked a dis- 
tinction between the two countries ; you deluged the land with 
blood ; you devastated the country and made it a waste, a howl- 
ing wilderness, — no, not a howling wilderness, for you left none 
in it to howl. 

After this, when it became repeopled with Irish, you still con- 
tinued your persecutions. You entered into a convention, — a 
more honorable one was never made, nor was one ever more dis- 
honorably violated. We have since then extorted your conces- 
sions drop by drop, or, as I have heard it said, hair by hair, 
until we stood disenthralled by our own exertions. 

We, the people of Ireland, stood at length on a footing of 
equality with yourselves ; and what have you done for us since ? 
Your treaties with Ireland have been broken ; your faith has 
not been kept. We have never violated our faith. We want 
justice, and then we will think of Repeal no more. I come 
with this announcement to you. 

I do not announce it with the affectation of humility, for I 
am not the representative only of a city or a count}*- ■ I have 
the confidence of millions; and in the strength of that confi- 
dence I tell you, "Do justice to Ireland, and you have nothing 
further to apprehend from the agitation of Repeal." 

You have nothing to apprehend from Ireland, but everything 
to hope from her combination and connection with you; the 
separation is then at an end. Here we are, ready to make an 
alliance with you if you please. Refuse at your peril, and we 
become repealers. Daniel O'Connell. 

* Mispronunciation detected the nationality. See Judges xii. 6. 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 417 

TREASON DISAVOWED. 

(a.d. 1848.) 

(Thomas Francis Meagher, of Waterford, Ireland, was condemned in 
1848 for treason, on account of alleged revolutionary action, and sentenced 
to banishment or penal servitude for life. He escaped from Tasmania in 
1852, reached America, commanded an Irish brigade in the war of 1861-65, 
and died in 1867. His vindication to the court, upon his sentence, illustrates 
the spirit of the enterprise for which he was punished.) 

VINDICATION PROM TREASON. 

My Lords, — It is my intention to say a few words only. To 
the efforts I have made in a just and noble cause I ascribe no 
vain importance ; nor do I claim for those efforts any high 
reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen so, that 
they who have tried to serve their country, no matter how weak 
the effort may have been, are sure to receive the thanks and 
blessings of its people. With my country, then, I leave my 
memory, my sentiments, my acts, — proudly feeling that they 
require no vindication from me this day. I am here to regret 
nothing I have ever done, — to retract nothing I have ever said. 
I am here to crave with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the 
liberty of my country. Far from it. Even here ; here where 
the thief, the libertine, the murderer, have left their footprints 
in the dust; here, on this spot, where the shadows of death 
surround me, and from which I see my early grave, in an un- 
anointed soil, opened to receive me; even here, encircled by 
these terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous 
sea upon which I have been wrecked still consoles, animates, 
enraptures me. 

No ; I do not despair of my poor old country, her peace, her 
liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more than 
bid her hope. To lift this island up; to make her a benefac- 
tor, instead of being the meanest beggar in the world ; to restore 
to her her native powers and her ancient constitution ; this has 
been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged 
by the law of England, I know this crime entails the penalty of 
death, but the history of Ireland explains this crime and justi- 
fies it. Judged by that history, the treason of which I stand 
27 



418 PATRIOTIC READER. 

convicted loses all its guilt ; is sanctified as a duty ; will be en- 
nobled as a sacrifice. With these sentiments, my lords, I await 
the sentence of the court, having done what I felt to be my 
duty; having spoken what I felt to be the truth, as I have done 
on every other occasion of my short career. I now bid farewell 
to the country of my birth, my passion, and death ; the coun- 
try whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies ; whose 
factions I have sought to still ; whose intellect I have prompted 
to a lofty aim; whose freedom has been my fatal dream. I 
offer to that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and 
the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for 
her freedom, the life of a young heart ; and with that life all 
the hopes, the honors, the endearments of an honorable home. 
Pronounce then, my lords, the sentence which the law directs, 
and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to 
meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart and 
a perfect composure, v to appear before a higher tribunal, — a tri- 
bunal where a Judge of infinite goodness as well as of justice 
will preside, and where, my lords, many, many of the judgments 

of this world will be reversed. 

Thomas Francis Meagher. 



RESURGITB. 

(a.d. 1877.) 

Now, for the faith that is in ye, 

Polander, Sclav, and Kelt ! 
Prove to the world what the lips have hurled 

The hearts have grandly felt. 

Eouse, ye races in shackles 1 

See in the East, the glare 
Is red in the sky, and the warning cry 

Is sounding — " Awake ! Prepare !" 

A voice from the spheres — a Hand, down-reached 

To hands that would be free, 
To rend the gyves from the fettered lives, 

That strain toward Liberty! 



PATRIOTIC APPEALS IN EMERGENCIES. 419 

Circassia ! the cup is flowing 

That holdeth perennial youth ; 
Who strikes succeeds, for when Manhood bleeds 

Each drop is a Cadmus' tooth. 

Sclavonia ! first from the sheathing 

Thy knife to the cord that binds ; 
Thy one-tongued host shall renew the boast, 

" The Scythians are the Winds !" 

Greece ! to the grasp of heroes, 

Flashed with thine ancient pride, 
Thy swords advance ; in the passing chance 

The great of heart are tried. 

Poland ! thy lance-heads brighten ; 

The Tartar has swept thy name 
From the schoolman's chart, but the patriot's heart 

Preserves its lines in flame. 

Ireland I mother of dolors, 

The trial on thee descends ; 
Who quaileth in fear when the test is near, 

His bondage never ends. 

Oppression, that kills the craven, 

Defied, is the freeman's good ; 
No cause can be lost forever whose cost 

Is coined from Freedom's blood ! 

Liberty's wine and altar 

Are Blood and Human Eight ; 
Her weak shall be strong while the struggle with Wrong 

Is a sacrificial fight. 

Earth for the people, — their laws their own, — 

An equal race for all ; 
Though shattered and few, who to this are true 

Shall flourish the more they fall. 

John Boyle O'Keillt. 



PART XII. 

PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND 
ODES. 



MY COUNTRY. 

I love my country's pine-clad hills, 
Her thousand bright and gushing rills, 

Her sunshine and her storms ; 
Her rough and rugged rocks that rear 
Their hoary heads high in the air 

In wild fantastic forms. 

I love her rivers, deep and wide, 

Those mighty streams that seaward glide 

To seek the ocean's breast; 
Her smiling fields, her pleasant vales, 
Her shady dells, her flowery dales, 

The haunts of peaceful rest. 

I love her forests, dark and lone, 
For there the wild bird's merry tone 

Is heard from morn till night, 
And there are lovelier flowers, I ween, 
Than e'er in Eastern lands were seen, 

In varied colors bright. 

Her forests and her valleys fair, 

Her flowers that scent the morning air, 

Have all their charms for me ; 
But more I love my country's name, 
Those words that echo deathless fame, — 

" The land of liberty." 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 421 

Oh, give me back my native hills, 
My daisied meads, and trouted rills, 

And groves of pine ! 
Oh, give me, too, the mountain air, — 
My youthful days without a care, 
When rose for me a mothers prayer, 

In tones divine ! 

Long years have passed. — and I behold 
My fathers elms and mansion old, — 

The brook's bright wave ; 
But, ah ! the scenes which fancy drew 
Deceived my heart. — the friends I knew, 
Are sleeping now, beneath the yew, — 

Low in the grave ! 

The sunny sports I loved so well. 
When but a child, seem like a spell 

Flung round the bier ! 
The ancient wood, the cliff, the glade, 
Whose charms, methought, could never fade, 
Again I view. — yet shed, unstayed, 

The silent tear ! 

Here let me kneel, and linger long. 
And pour, unheard, my native song, 

And seek relief! 
Like Ocean's wave that restless heaves, 
My days roll on, yet memory weaves 
Her twilight o'er the past, and leaves 

A balni for grief! 

Oh that I could again recall 

My early joys, companions, all, 

That cheered my youth ! 

But, ah ! 'tis vain, — how changed am I ! 

My heart hath learned the bitter sigh! 

The pure shall meet beyond the sky, — 

How sweet the truth ! 

Hesperian. 



422 PATRIOTIC READER. 



LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

" This is my own, my native land" ? 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 

If such there breathe, go, mark him well. 
For him no minstrel raptures swell. 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down, 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung. 
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 

Sir Walter Scott. 



MY NATIVE VILLAGE. 

There lies a village in a peaceful vale, 

"With sloping hills and waving woods around, 

Fenced from the blasts. There, never ruder gale 
Bows the tall grass that covers all the ground ; 

And planted shrubs are there, and cherished flowers. 

And a bright verdure born of gentle showers. 

'Twas there my young existence was begun, 
My earliest sports were on its flowery green, 

And often when my school-boy task was done, 
I climbed its hills to view the pleasant scene, 

And stood and gazed till the sun's setting ray 

Shone on the height, — the sweetest of the day. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 423 

There, when that houi* of mellow light was come, 
And mountain shadows cooled the ripened grain, 

I watched the weary yeoman plodding home, 
In the lone path that winds across the plain, 

To rest his limbs, and watch his child at play, 

And tell him o'er the labors of the day. 

And when the woods put on their autumn glow, 
And the bright sun came in among the trees, 

And leaves were gathering in the glen below, 
Swept softly from the mountains by the breeze, 

I wandered till the starlight on the stream 

At length awoke me from my fairy dream. 

Ah ! happy days, too happy to return, 

Fled on the wings of youth's departed years, 

A bitter lesson has been mine to learn, 

The truth of life, its labors, pains, and fears ; 

Yet does the memory of my boyhood stay, 

A twilight of the brightness passed away. 

My thoughts steal back to that sweet village still ; 

Its flowers and peaceful shades before me rise ; 
The play-place and the prospect from the hill, 

Its summer verdure, and autumnal dyes ; 
The present brings its storms ; but, while they last, 
I shelter me in the delightful past. 

John Howard Bryant. 



THE PATRIOT'S ELYSIUM. 

There is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 
And milder moons imparadise the night; 
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, 
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. 



424 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 

The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 

Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, 

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 

In every clime, the magnet of his soul, 

Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole ; 

For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace, 

The heritage of nature's noblest race, 

There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 

Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside 

His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride ; 

While, in his softened looks, benignly blend 

The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 

Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife, 

Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life. 

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye 

An angel guard of loves and graces lie ; 

Around her knees domestic duties meet, 

And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 

"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found ? 

Art thou a man ? — a patriot ? — look around ! 

Oh ! thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 

That land thy country, and that spot thy home. 

James Montgomery. 



THE SONGS OF OUR FATHERS. 

Sing them upon the sunny hills, 

When days are long and bright, 
And the blue gleam of shining rills 

Is loveliest to thy sight ; 
Sing them along the misty moor, 

Where ancient hunters roved, 
And swell them through the torrent's roar,— 

The songs our fathers loved. 



PATEIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 425 

The songs their souls rejoiced to hear 

When harps were in the hall, 
And each proud note made lance and spear 

Thrill on the bannered wall ; 
The songs that through our valley green, 

Sent on from age to age, 
Like his own river's voice, have been 

The peasant's heritage. 

The reaper sings them when the vale 

Is filled with plumy sheaves ; 
The woodman, by the starlight pale 

Cheered homeward through the leaves ; 
And unto them the glancing oars 

A joyous measure keep, 
Where the dark rocks that crest our shores 

Dash back the foaming deep. 

So let it be, — a light they shed 

O'er each old fount and grove ; 
A memory of the gentle dead, 

A spell of lingering love ; 
Murmuring the names of mighty men, 

They bid our streams roll on, 
And link high thoughts to every glen 

Where valiant deeds were done. 

Teach them your children round the hearth, 

When evening fires burn clear, 
And in the fields of harvest mirth, 

And on the hills of deer. 
So shall each long-forgotten word, 

When far those loved ones roam, 
Call back the hearts that once it stirred, 

To childhood's holy home. 

The green woods of their native land 

Shall whisper in the strain, 
The voices of their household band 

Shall sweetly sj)eak again ; 



426 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The heathery heights in vision rise 
Where like the stag they roved, — 

Sing to your sons those melodies, 
The songs your fathers loved. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans. 



OUR NATIVE SONG. 

Our native song, — our native song, 

Oh, where is he who loves it not? 
The spell it holds is deep and strong, 

Where'er we go, whate'er our lot. 
Let other music greet our ear 

With thrilling fire or dulcet tone, 
We speak to praise, we pause to hear, 

But yet — oh, yet — 'tis not our own. 
The anthem chant, the ballad wild, 

The notes that we remember long, — 
The theme we sing with lisping tongue,— 

'Tis this we love, — our native song. 

The one who bears the felon's brand, 

With moody brow and darkened name ; 
Thrust meanly from his father-land 

To languish out a life of shame ; 
Oh, let him hear some simple strain, — 

Some lay his mother taught her boy, — 
He'll feel the charm, and dream again 

Of home, of innocence, and joy. 
The sigh will burst, the drops will start, 

And all of virtue, buried long, — 
The best, the purest in his heart, — 

Is wakened by his native song. 

Self-exiled from our place of birth 

To climes more fragrant, bright, and gay, 

The memory of our own fair earth 
May chance awhile to fade away; 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 427 

But should some minstrel echo fall, 

Of chords that breathe Old England's fame, 

Our souls will burn, our spirits yearn, 
True to the land we love and claim. 

The high, — the low, — in weal or woe, 
Be sure there's something coldly wrong 

About the heart that does not glow 

To hear its own, its native song. 

Eliza Cook. 



ADDRESS TO LIBERTY. 

Oh, could I worship aught beneath the skies 
That earth hath seen, or fancy could devise, 
Thine altar, sacred Liberty, should stand, 
Built by no mercenary, vulgar hand, 
With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair 
As ever dressed a bank, or scented summer air. 

Duly, as ever on the mountain's height 

The peep of morning shed a dawning light ; 

Again, when evening in her sober vest 

Brew the gray curtain of the fading west ; 

My soul should yield thee willing thanks and praise 

For the chief blessings of my fairest days : 

But that were sacrilege : praise is not thine, 

But His, who gave thee, and preserves thee mine ; 

Else I would say, — and, as I spake, bid fly 

A captive bird into the boundless sky, — 

This rising realm adores thee : thou art come 

From Sparta hither, and art here at home ; 

We feel thy force still active ; at this hour 

Enjoy immunity from priestly power ; 

While conscience, happier than in ancient years, 

Owns no superior but the God she fears. 

Propitious Spirit ! yet expunge a wrong 

Thy rights have suffered, and our land, too long ; 



428 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share 
The fears and hopes of a commercial care : 
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built 
To bind the lawless, and to punish guilt; 
But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood 
Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood : 
And honest merit stands on slippery ground 
Where covert guile and artifice abound. 
Let just restraint, for public peace designed, 
Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind, — 
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee, — 
But let insolvent innocence go free. 

"William Cowper. 



THE VISION OF LIBERTY. 

The evening heavens were calm and bright ; 

No dimness rested on the glittering light, 
That sparkled from that wilderness of worlds on high ; 

Those distant suns burned on with quiet ray ; 

The placid planets held their modest way ; 
And silence reigned profound o'er earth, and sea, and sky. 

Oh ! what an hour for lofty thought ! 

My spirit burned within ; I caught 
A holy inspiration from the hour. 

Around me, man and nature slept ; 

Alone my solemn watch I kept, 
Till morning dawned, and sleep resumed her power. 

A vision passed upon my soul. 
I still was gazing up to heaven, 
As in the early hours of even ; 
I still beheld the planets roll, 
A.nd all those countless sons of light 
Flame from the broad blue arch, and guide the moonless night. 

When, lo ! upon the plain, 

Just where it skirts the swelling main, 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 429 

A massive castle, far and high, 

In towering grandeur broke upon my eye. 
Proud in its strength and years, the ponderous pile 

Flung up its time-defying towers ; 
Its lofty gates seemed scornfully to smile 

At vain assaults of human powers, 
And threats and arms deride. 
Its gorgeous carvings of heraldic pride, 

In giant masses, graced the walls above ; 
And dungeons yawned below. 

Yet ivy there and moss their garlands wove, 
Grave, silent chroniclers of time's protracted flow. 

Bursting on my steadfast gaze, 

See, within, a sudden blaze ! 
So small at first, the zephyr's slightest swell, 

That scarcely stirs the pine-tree top, 

Nor makes the withered leaf to drop, 
The feeble fluttering of that flame would quell. 

But soon it spread, 

Waving, rushing, fierce, and red, 

From wall to wall, from tower to tower, 

Baging with resistless power ; 
Till every fervent pillar glowed, 

And every stone seemed burning coal, 
Instinct with living heat that flowed 

Like streaming radiance from the kindled pole. 

Beautiful, fearful, grand, 

Silent as death, I saw the fabric stand. 

At length a crackling sound began ; 

From side to side, throughout the pile it ran ; 

And louder yet and louder grew, 

Till now in rattling thunder-peals it grew ; 

Huge shivered fragments from the pillars broke, 

Like fiery sparkles from the anvil's stroke. 

The shattered walls were rent and riven, 

And piecemeal driven, 



430 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Like blazing comets, through the troubled sky. 

'Tis done ; what centuries have reared, 

In quick explosion disappeared, 
Not even its ruins met my wondering eye. 

But in their place, 

Bright with more than human grace, 

Robed in more than mortal seeming, 
Badiant glory in her face, 

And eyes with heaven's own brightness beaming, 
Bose a fair majestic form, 
As the mild rainbow from the storni. 
I marked her smile, I knew her eye ; 

And when, with gesture of command, 

She waved aloft a cap-crowned wand, 
My slumbers fled 'mid shouts of "Liberty!" 

Read ye the dream ? and know ye not 

How truly it unlocked the world of fate ? 

"Went not the flame from this illustrious spot, 

And spread it not, and burns in every state ? 

And when their old and cumbrous walls, 
Filled with this spirit, glow intense, 
Vainly they rear their impotent defence : 

The fabric falls ! 

That fervent energy must spread, 

Till despotism's towers be overthrown, 

And in their stead 

Liberty stands alone ! 

Hasten the day, just Heaven ! 

Accomplish thy design, 
And let the blessings thou hast freely given, 

Freely on all men shine, 
Till equal rights be equally enjoyed, 
And human power for human good employed ; 
Till law, not man, the sovereign rule sustain, 
And peace and virtue undisputed reign. 

Henry "Ware, Jr. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS ; AND ODES. 431 



"DULCE BT DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI." 

Oh ! it is great for our country to die, where ranks are con- 
tending ; 

Bright is the wreath of our fame ; glory awaits us for aye, — 
Glory that never is dim, shining on with light never ending, — 

Glory that never shall fade, never, oh, never, away ! 

Oh ! it is sweet for our country to die ! How softly reposes 

Warrior youth on his bier, wet by the tears of his love, 
AVet by a mother's warm tears; they crown him with garlands 
of roses, 
Weep, and then joyously turn, bright where he triumphs 
above. 

Not to the shades shall the youth descend who for country hath 
perished ; 
Hebe awaits him in heaven, welcomes him there with her 
smile ; 
There, at the banquet divine, the patriot spirit is cherished ; 
Gods love the young who ascend pure from the funeral pile. 

Not to Elysian fields, by the still, oblivious river ; 

Not to the isles of the blest, over the blue-rolling sea ; 
But on Olympian heights shall dwell the devoted forever ; 

There shall assemble the good, there the wise, valiant, and 
free. ■ 

Oh ! then, how great for our country to die, — in the front rank to 
perish, 
Firm with our breast to the foe, victory's shout in our ear ! 
Long they our statues shall crown, in songs our memory cherish ; 
We shall look forth from our heaven, pleased the sweet music 
to hear. 

James Gates Percival. 



432 PATRIOTIC READER. 



WHAT'S HALLOWED GROUND? 

What's hallowed ground ? Has earth a clod 
Its Maker meant not should be trod 
By man, the image of his God, 

Erect and free, 
Unscourged by Superstition's rod 

To bow the knee ? 

That's hallowed ground, where, mourned and missed, 
The lips repose our love has kissed : — 
But where's their memory's mansion ? Is't 

Yon church-yard's bowers ? 
No ! in ourselves their souls exist, 

A part of ours. 
******* 
What hallows ground where heroes sleep ? 
'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap ! — 
In dews that heavens far distant weep 

Their turf may bloom, 
Or genii twine, beneath the deep, 

Their coral tomb. 

But, strew his ashes to the wind, 
Whose sword or voice has served mankind, 
And is he dead whose glorious mind 

Lifts thine on high ? — 
To live in hearts we leave behind, 

Is not to die. 

Is't death to fall for Freedom's right ? 
He's dead alone that lacks her light ! 
And murder sullies in Heaven's sight 

The sword he draws : — 
What can alone ennoble fight ? 

A noble cause ! 

Give that, and welcome War to brace 

Her drums, and rend heaven's reeking space ! — 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 433 

The colors, planted face to face, 

The charging cheer, 
Though Death's pale horse lead on the chase, 

Shall still be dear. 

And place our trophies where men kneel 
To Heaven ! — but Heaven rebukes my zeal ! 
The cause of truth and human weal, 

God above! 
Transfer it from the sword's appeal 

To Peace and Love. 

Peace, Love ! the cherubim, that join 
Their spread wings o'er Devotion's shrine, — 
Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine, 

Where they are not. 
The heart alone can make divine 

Eeligion's spot. 

What's hallowed ground ? 'Tis what gives birth 
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth ! — 
Peace ! Independence ! Truth ! go forth 

Earth's compass round ; 
And your high-priesthood shall make earth 

All hallowed ground. 

Tuomas Campbell. 



THE GRAVES OP THE PATRIOTS. 

Here rest the great and good, — here they repose 
After their generous toil. A sacred band, 
They take their sleep together, while the year 
Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, 
And gathers them again, as winter frowns. 
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre, — green sods 
Are all their monument ; and yet it tells 
A nobler history than pillared piles, 
28 



434 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Or the eternal pyramids. They need 

No statue nor inscription to reveal 

Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy 

With which their children tread the hallowed ground 

That holds their venerated bones, the peace 

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth 

That clothes the land they rescued, — these, though mute, 

As feeling ever is when deepest, — these 

Are monuments more lasting than the fanes 

Reared to the kings and demi-gods of old. 

Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade 

Over the lowly graves ; beneath their boughs 

There is a solemn darkness, even at noon, 

Suited to such as visit at the shrine 

Of serious liberty. No factious voice 

Called them unto the field of generous fame, 

But the pure consecrated love of home. 

No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes 

In all its greatness. It has told itself 

To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings, 

At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here, 

Where first our patriots sent the invader back, 

Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all 

To tell us where they fought, and where they lie. 

Their feelings were all nature ; and they need 

No art to make them known. The} r live in us, 

While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold, 

Worshipping nothing but our own pure hearts 

And the one universal Lord. They need 

No column pointing to the heaven they sought, 

To tell us of their home. The heart itself, 

Left to its own free purposes, hastens there. 

And there alone reposes. Let these elms 

Bend their protecting shadow o'er their grave-, 

And build with their green roof the only fane, 

Where we may gather on the hallowed day, 

That rose to them in blood, and set in glory. 

Here let us meet; and while our motionless lips 

Give not a sound, and all around is mute 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL, HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 435 

In the deep sabbath of a heart too full 

For words or tears, — here let us strew the sod 

With the first flowers of spring, and make to them 

An offering of the plenty, Nature gives, 

And they have rendered ours, — perpetually. 

James Gates Percival. 



COLUMBIA, THE LAND OP THE BRAVE. 

O Columbia, the gem of the ocean, 

The home of the brave and the free, 
The shrine of each patriot's devotion, 

A world offers homage to thee. 
Thy mandates make heroes assemble, 

When Liberty's form stands in view, 
Thy banners make tyranny tremble, 
When borne by the Eed, White, and Blue. 
Chorus. — When borne by the Eed, White, and Blue, 
When borne by the Red, White, and Blue, 
Thy banners make tyranny tremble, 
When borne by the Red, White, and Blue. 

When war winged its wide desolation, 

And threatened the land to deform, 
The ark then of Freedom's foundation, 

Columbia, rode safe through the storm, 
With the garlands of victory around her, 

When so proudly she bore her brave crew, 
With her flag proudly floating before her, 

The boast of the Red, White, and Blue. 
Chorus. 

The wine-cup, the wine-cup bring hither, 

And fill you it true to the brim. 
May the wreaths they have won never wither, 

Nor the stars of their glory grow dim. 



436 PATRIOTIC READER. 

May the service united ne'er sever, 
But they to their colors prove true ! 

The Army and Navy forever ! 

Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue ! 

Chorus. David T. Shaw. 



HAIL, COLUMBIA, HAPPY LAND! 

Hail, Columbia, happy land ! 
Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, 
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, 
And, when the storm of war was gone, 
Enjoyed the peace your valor won : 
Let Independence be your boast ; 
Ever mindful what it cost, 
Ever grateful for the prize, 
Let its altars reach the skies. 
Chorus. — Firm, united, let us be, 

Rallying round our liberty, 
As a band of brothers joined, 
Peace and safety we shall find. 

Immortal patriots ! rise once more ! 
Defend your rights, defend your shore ; 
Let no rude foe, with impious hands, 
Let no rude foe, with impious hands, 
Invade the shrine where sacred lies, 
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize ; 
While offering peace, sincere and just, 
In Heaven we place a manly trust, 
That truth and justice may prevail, 
And every scheme of bondage fail. 
Chorus. 

Sound, sound the trump of fame ! 
Let Washington's groat name 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 437 

Ring through the world with loud applause ! 
Ring through the world with loud applause 1 
Let every clime to freedom dear 
Listen with a joyful ear ; 
With equal skill, with steady power, 
He governs in the fearful hour 
Of horrid war, or guides with ease 
The happier time of honest peace. 
Chorus. 

Behold the chief who now commands, 
Once more to serve his country stands, 
The rock on which the storm will beat, 
The rock on which the storm will beat. 
But, armed in virtue, firm and true, 
His hopes are fixed on Heaven and you ; 
When hope was sinking in dismay, 
When gloom obscured Columbia's day, 
His steady mind, from changes free, 
Resolved on death or Liberty. 

Chorus. 

Joseph Hopkinson. 



THE EAGLE. 



Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, 

Thy home is high in heaven, 
Where wide the storms their banner fling, 

And the tempest-clouds are driven. 
Thy throne is on the mountain-top ; 

Thy fields, the boundless air ; 
And hoary peaks, that proudly prop 

The skies, thy dwellings are. 

Thou sittest, like a thing of light, 

Amid the noontide blaze : 
The mid-day sun, though clear and bright, 

Can never dim thy gaze. 



438 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

When the night storm gathers dim and dark, 
With a shrill and boding scream, 

Thou rushest by the foundering bark, 
Quick as a passing dream. 

Thou art perched aloft on the beetling crag, 

And the waves are white below, 
And on, with a haste that cannot lag, 

They rush in an endless now. 
Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight 

To lands beyond the sea, 
And away, like a spirit wreathed in light, 

Thou hurriest, wild and free. 

Lord of the boundless realm of air, 

In thy imperial name, 
The hearts of the bold and ardent dare 

The dangerous path of fame. 
Beneath the shade of thy golden wings 

The Eoman legions bore, 
From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs, 

Their pride to the polar shore. 

For thee they fought, for thee they fell, 

And their oath was on thee laid ; 
To thee the clarions raised their swell, 

And the dying warrior prayed. 
Thou wert, through an age of death and fears, 

The image of pride and power, 
Till the gathered rage of a thousand years 

Burst forth in one awful hour. 

And then a deluge of wrath it came, 

And the nations shook with dread ; 
And it swept the earth till its fields were flame, 

And piled with the mingled dead. 
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood 

With the low and crouching slave ; 
And together lay, in a shroud of blood, 

The coward and the brave. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 439 

And where was then thy fearless flight ? 

" O'er the dark, mysterious sea, 
To the lands that caught the setting light, 

The cradle of Liberty. 
There, on the silent and lonely shore, 

For ages I watched alone, 
And the world in its darkness asked no more 

Where the glorious bird had flown. 

" But then came a bold and hardy few, 

And they breasted the unknown wave ; 
I caught afar the wandering crew, 

And I knew they were high and brave. 
I wheeled around the welcome bark, 

As it sought the desolate shore, 
And up to heaven, like a joyous lark, 

My quivering pinions bore. 

" And now that bold and hardy few 

Are a nation wide and strong ; 
And danger and doubt I have led them through, 

And they worship me in song ; 
And over their bright and glancing arms, 

On field, and lake, and sea, 
With an eye that fires, and a spell that charms, 

I guide them to victory." 

James Gates Percival. 



THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 

Bird of Columbia, well art thou 
An emblem of our native land ; 

With unblanched front and noble brow, 
Among the nations doomed to stand ; 

Proud like her mighty mountain woods ; 
Like her own rivers wandering free ; 



440 PATRIOTIC READER. 

And sending forth from hills and floods 

The joyous shout of liberty. 
Like thee, majestic bird, like thee, 
She stands in unbought majesty, 
With spreading wing, untired and strong, 
That dares a soaring far and long, 
That mounts aloft, nor looks below, 
And will not quail though tempests blow. 

The admiration of the earth, 

In grand simplicity she stands ; 
Like thee, the storms beheld her birth, 

And she was nursed by rugged hands ; 
But, past the fierce and furious war, 

Her rising fame new glory brings, 
For kings and nobles come from far 

To seek the shelter of her wings. 
And like thee, rider of the cloud, 
She mounts the heavens, serene and proud, 
Great in a pure and noble fame, 
Great in her spotless champion's name, 
And destined in her day to be 
Mighty as Rome, — more nobly free. 

My native land, my native land, 

To her my thoughts will fondly turn ; 
For her the warmest hopes expand, 

For her the heart with fears will yearn. 
Oh, may she keep her eye, like thee, 

Proud eagle of the rocky wild, 
Fixed on the sun of liberty, 

By rank, by faction, unbeguiled ; 
Remembering still the rugged road 
Our venerable fathers trod. 
When they through toil and danger pressed 
To gain their glorious bequest, 
And from each lip the caution fell 
To those who followed, " Guard it well." 

Charles West Thomson. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 441 

THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

When Freedom from her mountain height 

Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night, 

And set the stars of glory there. 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light ; 
Then, from his mansion in the sun, 
She called her eagle bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

Majestic monarch of the cloud, 

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest trumpings loud 
And see the lightning lances driven, 

When strive the warriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, — 
Child of the sun I to thee 'tis given 

To guard the banner of the free ; 
To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
To ward away the battle-stroke ; 
And bid its blendings shine afar, 
Like rainbows on the clouds of war, 

The harbingers of victory ! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 
The sign of hope and triumph high, 
When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on. 
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, 
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy sky-born glories burn, 
And, as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance ; 



442 PATRIOTIC READER. 

And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, 
And gory sabres rise and fall, 
Like shoots of flame on midnigbt's pall, 
Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 

And cowering foes shall shrink beneath 
Each gallant arm that strikes below 

That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave, 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, 
And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack : 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
And smile to see thy splendor fly, 
In triumph, o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! 

By angel hands to valor given, 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? 

Joseph Rodman Drake. 



OUR FLAG IS THERE. 

Our flag is there, our flag is there, 
We'll hail it with three loud huzzas. 

Our flag is there, our flag is there. 
Behold the glorious Stripes and Stars. 

Stout hearts have fought for that bright flag, 
Strong hands sustained it mast-head high, 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL, HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 443 

And, oh, to see how proud it waves, 
Brings tears of joy in every eye. 

That flag has stood the battle's roar, 

With foemen stout, with foemen brave ; 
Strong hands have sought that flag to lower, 

And found a speedy watery grave. 
That flag is known on every shore, 

The standard of a gallant band : 
Alike unstained in peace or war, 

It floats o'er Freedom's happy land. 

American Naval Officer, 1812. 



THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 
O'er the ramparts we watcbed, were so gallantly streaming? 
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there : 
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, 

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam ; 
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream : 
'Tis the star-spangled banner ; oh, long may it wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ! 

And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, 
'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, 

A home and a country they'd leave us no more ? 

Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution : 



444 PATRIOTIC READER. 

No refuge could save the hireling and slave 
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave ; 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their loved home and the war's desolation ! 
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven-rescued land 

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation ! 
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just ; 
And this be our motto, " In God is our trust ;" 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Francis Scott Key. 



STARS IN MY COUNTRY'S SKY— ARE YE ALL 
THERE ? 

Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, 

Stars in my country's sky ? 
Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, 

In your shining homes on high ? 
" Count us ! Count us," was their answer, 

As they dazzled on my view, 
In glorious perihelion, 

Amid their field of blue. 

I cannot count ye rightly ; 

There's a cloud with sable rim ; 
I cannot make your number out, 

For my eyes with tears are dim. 
O bright and blessed angel, 

On white wing floating by, 
Help me to count, and not to miss 

One star in my country's sky ! 

Then the angel touched mine eyelids, 
And touched the frowning cloud ; 

And its sable rim departed, 

And it fled with murky shroud. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 445 

There was no missing Pleiad 

'Mid all that sister race ; 
The Southern Cross gleamed radiant forth, 

And the Pole-Star kept its place. 

Then I knew it was the angel 

Who woke the hymning strain 
That at our Eedeemer's birth 

Pealed out o'er Bethlehem's plain ; 
And still its heavenly key-tone 

My listening country held, 
For all her constellated stars 

The diapason swelled. 

Lydia Huntley Sigournky. 



OLD IRONSIDES. 

At, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high ; 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle-shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more ! 

Her deck — once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below — 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee : 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 
Should sink beneath the wave ! 

Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 
And there should be her grave : 



446 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



E PLURIBUS UNUM. 

Though many and bright are the stars that appear 

In that flag by our country unfurled, 
And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there, 

Like a rainbow adorning the world, 
Their light is unsullied as those in the sky 

By a deed that our fathers have done, 
And they're linked in as true and as holy a tie 

In their motto of " Many in One." 

From the hour when those patriots fearlessly flung 

That banner of starlight abroad, 
Ever true to themselves, to that motto they clung, 

As they clung to the promise of God. 
By the bayonet traced at the midnight of war, 

On the fields where our glory was won, — 
Oh, perish the heart or the hand that would mar 

Our motto of " Many in One." 

'Mid the smoke of the conflict, the cannon's deep roar, 

How oft it has gathered renown ! 
While those stars were reflected in rivers of gore, 

Where the cross and the lion went down ; 
And though few were their lights in the gloom of that hour, 

Yet the hearts that were striking below 
Had God for their bulwark, and truth for their power, 

And they stopped not to number their foe. 

From where our green mountain-tops blend with the sky, 

And the giant Saint Lawrence is rolled, 
To the waves where the balmy Hesperides lie, 

Like the dream of some prophet of old, 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 447 

They conquered, and, dying, bequeathed to our care 

Not this boundless dominion alone, 
But that banner whose loveliness hallows the air, 

And their motto of " Many in One." 

We are many in one while glitters a star 

In the blue of the heavens above, 
And tyrants shall quail, 'mid their dungeons afar, 

When they gaze on that motto of love. 
It shall gleam o'er the sea, 'mid the bolts of the storm, 

Over tempest, and battle, and wreck, 
And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm, 

'Neath the blood of the slippery deck. 

The oppressed of the earth to that standard shall fly 

Wherever its folds shall be spread, 
And the exile shall feel 'tis his own native sky, 

Where its stars shall wave over his head ; 
And those stars shall increase till the fulness of time 

Its millions of cycles have run, — 
Till the world shall have welcomed their mission sublime, 

And the nations of earth shall be one. 

Though the old Alleghany may tower to heaven, 

And the Father of Waters divide, 
The links of our destiny cannot be riven 

While the truth of those words shall abide. 
Oh, then let them glow on each helmet and brand, 

Though our blood like our rivers shall run ; 
Divide as we may in our own native land, 

To the rest of the world we are one. 

Then, up with our flag ! — let it stream on the air ; 

Though our fathers are cold in their graves, 
They had hands that could strike, they had souls that could dare, 

And their sons were not born to be slaves. 
Up, up with that banner ! where'er it may call, 

Our millions shall rally around, 
And a nation of freemen that moment shall fall 

When its stars shall be trailed on the ground. 

George Washington Cutter. 



448 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are 

stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword : 
His truth is marching on. 

I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; 
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps; 
T can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps : 
His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel: 

" As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall 

deal; 
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, 
Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat; 
Ob, be swift, my soul, to answer him ! be jubilant, my feet! 
Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me ; 

As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 

While God is marching on. 

Julia Ward Howe. 



KELLER'S AMERICAN HYMN. 

Speed our Republic, O Father on high ; 

Lead us in pathways of justice and right; 
Rulers as well as the ruled, " One and all," 
Girdle with virtue, the armor of night. 
Hail, three times hail, to our country and flag, 
Rulers as well as the ruled, ll One and all," 
Girdle with virtue, the armor of night, 
Hail, three times hail, to our country and flag! 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 449 

Foremost in battle for Freedom to stand, 

We rush to arms when aroused by its call ; 

Still, as of yore, when George Washington led, 

Thunders our war-cry, We conquer or fall. 

Hail, three times hail, to our country and flag ! 

(Repeat last two lines as chorus.) 

Faithful and honest to friend and to foe, — 

Willing to die in humanity's cause, — 
Thus we defy all tyrannical power. 

While we contend for our Union and laws. 

Hail, three times hail, to our country and flag ! 
(Chorus as before.) 

Eise up, proud eagle, l'ise up to the clouds ; 

Spread thy broad wings o'er this fair western world ; 
Fling from thy beak our dear banner of old, — 
Show that it still is for Freedom unfurled. 
(Chorus as before.) 

Matthias Keller. 



THE NEW SONG OP FREEDOM. 

(Contributed for the " Patriotic Keader.") 

Sounds of joy o'er broad savannas, 

Waking to a newer life, 
Glad recall the old hosannas 

Of the early battle-strife, 
When, our liberty achieving, 

North and South together stood, 
To the glorious object cleaving, 
And the boon at length receiving, 

Purchased with their mingled blood. 

O'er our sacred fields of battle, 
By New England rock and rill, 

The rejoicing pseans rattle, 
And revive at Bunker Hill ; 



450 PATRIOTIC READER. 

And through all the land extending, 
As a new day's gladdening light, 
All our sundered interests blending, 
All our stormy conflicts ending 
In the triumph of the right. 

Down the border rivers flowing, 

Sweetly rolls the tide along, 
Through the tropic bowers going, 

Till the sea repeats the song. 
Burdened hearts, the music feeling, 

Catch the glow of Freedom's fire, 
And, before her altar kneeling, 
For their cause to Heaven appealing, 

Grasp the boon their hearts desire. 

To the mighty inland oceans, 

To the little lakes between, 
To the broad, rich prairie-Goshens, 

Flocks and harvests o'er them seen ; 
Over dale and hill-side ringing, 

Where the Susquehanna flows ; 
To the Catskill's summit springing, 
To romantic Hudson bringing 

Welcome strains, that Freedom knows. 

O'er the snow-capt Rocky Mountains, 

Onward sweeps the anthem clear ; 
Mississippi's farthest fountains 

Its rejoicing echoes hear, 
While they reach far hills surrounding 

Where the wild Comanche dwells, 
Where Missouri's tide is sounding, 
To Nevada's distant bounding, 

Waking all her golden dells. 

Earnest faith the song's inspiring, 
Praise to God, good-will to men ; 

Purer knowledge, all desiring, 
Flows in living streams again ; 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 451 

Schools and churches multiplying, 

All the precious arts increase ; 
Fruits of labor, self-relying, 
Wealth, with generous purpose vying, 

Marks of freedom, skill, and peace. 

Onward, flag of glory, flying, 

Grandest earthly banner, thou ; 
Higher rise, to fame undying, 

Borne aloft by Freedom now. 
Thine, Stars and Stripes, the story 

Of a nation's wondrous birth, 
Symbol of its brightening glory, 
Won from field and conflict gory, 

Symbol of its power and worth. 

Sylyanus Dryden Phklps. 



THE LAND OP THE SOUTH. 

Land of the South ! imperial land ! 

How proud thy mountains rise ! 
How sweet thy scenes on every hand ! 

How fair thy covering skies ! 
But not for this, — oh, not for these, 

I love thy fields to roam, — 
Thou hast a dearer spell to me, 

Thou art my native home ! 

Tby rivers roll their liquid wealth 

Unequalled to the sea, 
Thy hills and valleys bloom with health, 

And green with verdure be ! 
But not for thy proud ocean streams, 

Not for thine azui*e dome, 
Sweet, sunny South, I cling to thee, — 

Thou art my native home ! 



452 PATRIOTIC READER. 

I've stood beneath Italia's clime, 

Beloved of tale and song ; 
On Heloyn's hills, proud and sublime, 

Where nature's wonders throng ; 
By Tempe's classic, sunlit streams, 

Where gods of old did roam, — 
But ne'er have found so fair a land 

As thou, my native home ! 

And thou hast prouder glories, too, 

Than nature ever gave : 
Peace sheds o'er thee her genial dew, 

And Freedom's pinions wave, 
Fair Science flings her pearls around, 

Beligion lifts her dome, — 
These, these endear thee to my heart, 

My own loved native home 1 

And " Heaven's best gift to man" is thine, — 

God bless thy rosy girls ! 
Like sylvan flowers, they sweetly shine, 

Their hearts are pure as pearls ! 
And grace and goodness circle them 

Where'er their footsteps roam. 
How can I, then, whilst loving them, 

Not love my native home ! 

Land of the South, imperial land ! 

Then here's a health to thee : 
Long as thy mountain barriers stand 

Mayst thou be blest and free ! 
May dark dissension's banner ne'er 

Wave o'er thy fertile loam ! 
But should it come, there's one will die 

To save his native home. 

Alexander Beaufort Meek. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 453 



THE BATTLE OF EUTAW. 

Hark ! 'tis the voice of the mountain, 

And it speaks to our heart in its pride, 
As it tells of the bearing of heroes 

Who compassed its summits and died ! 
How they gathered to strife as the eagles, 

When the foeman had clambered the height ! 
How, with scent keen and eager as beagles, 

They hunted him down for the fight. 

Hark ! through the gorge of the valley, 

'Tis the bugle that tells of the foe ; 
Our own quickly sounds for the rally, 

And we snatch down the rifle and go. 
As the hunter who hears of the panther, 

Each arms him and leaps to his steed, 
Bides forth through the desolate antre, 

With his knife and his rifle at need. 

From a thousand deep gorges they gather, 

From the cot lowly perched by the rill, 
The cabin half hid in the heather, 

'Neath the crag where the eagle keeps still ; 
Each lonely at first in his roaming, 

Till the vale to the sight opens fair, 
And he sees the low cot through the gloaming, 

When his bugle gives tongue to the air. 

Thus a thousand brave hunters assemble 

For the hunt of the insolent foe, 
And soon shall his myrmidons tremble 

'Neath the shock of the thunder-bolt's blow. 
Down the lone heights now wind they together, 

As the mountain-brooks flow to the vale, 
And now, as they group on the heather, 

The keen scout delivers his tale : 



454 PATRIOTIC READER. 

" The British — the Tories are on us, 

And now is the moment to prove 
To the women whose virtues have won us, 

That our virtues are worthy their love ! 
They have swept the vast valleys below us, 

With fire, to the hills from the sea ; 
And here would they seek to o'er throw us 

In a realm which our eagle makes free I" 

No war-council suffered to trifle 

With the hours devote to the deed ; 
Swift followed the grasp of the rifle, 

Swift followed the bound to the steed ; 
And soon, to the eyes of our yeomen, 

All panting with rage at the sight, 
Gleamed the long wavy tents of the foeman, 

As he lay in his camp on the height. 

Grim dashed they away as they bounded, 

The hunters to hem in the prey, 
And, with Deckard's long rifles surrounded, 

Then the British rose fast to the fray ; 
And never with arms of more vigor 
' Did their bayonets press through the strife, 
Where with every swift pull of the trigger 
The sharp-shooters dashed out a life ! 

'Twas the meeting of eagles and lions ; 

'Twas the rushing of tempests and waves ; 
Insolent triumph 'gainst patriot defiance, 

Born freemen 'gainst sycophant slaves ; 
Scotch Ferguson sounding his whistle, 

As from danger to danger he flies, 
Feels the moral that lies in Scotch thistle, 

With its " touch me who dare !" and he dies ! 

An hour, and the battle is over ; 

The eagles ai*e rending the prey ; 
The serpents seek flight into cover, 

But the terror still stands in the way : 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 455 

More dreadful the doom that on treason . 

Avenges the wrongs of the state ; 
And the oak-tree for many a season 

Bears fruit for the vultures of fate ! 

William Gilmore Simms. 



PULASKI'S BANNER. 

(Count Casimir Pulaski, the Polish patriot, killed at the siege of Savannah 
in 1779, had a crimson standard which had been worked for him by the Mora- 
vian nuns of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.) 

When the dying flame of day 

Through the chancel shot its ray, 

Far the glimmering tapers shed 

Faint light on the cowled head, 

And the censer burning swung, 

Where, before the altar, hung 

The crimson banner, that with prayer 

Had been consecrated there, 
And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard the while, 
Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle. 

" Take thy banner ! May it wave 
Proudly o'er the good and brave ; 
When the battle's distant wail 
Breaks the sabbath of our vale, 
When the clarion's music thrills 
To the hearts of these lone hills, 
When the spear in conflict shakes, 
And the strong lance shivering breaks. 

"Take thy banner! and, beneath 
The battle-cloud's encircling wreath, 
Guard it, till our homes are free ! 
Guard it ! God will prosper thee ! 
In the dark and tiying hour, 
In the breaking forth of power, 
In the rush of steeds and men, 
His right hand will shield thee then. 



456 PATRIOTIC HEADER. 

•"Take thy banner! But when night 

Closes round the ghastly fight, 

If the vanquished warrior bow, 

Spare him ! By our holy vow, 

By our prayers and many tears, 

By the mercy that endears, 

Spare him, — he our love hath shared ; 

Spare him, — as thou wouldst be spared. 

" Take thy banner ! and if e'er 
Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, 
And the muffled drum should beat 
To the tread of mournful feet, 
Then this crimson flag shall be- 
Martial cloak and shroud for thee." 

The warrior took that banner proud, 
And it was his martial cloak and shroud. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



NATHAN HALE. 



To drum-beat and heart-beat a soldier marches by ; 
There is color in his cheek, there is courage in his eye, — 
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat, in a moment, he must die. 

By starlight and moonlight he seeks the Briton's camp ; 
He hears the rustling flag, and the armed sentry's tramp ; 
And the starlight and moonlight his silent wanderings lamp. 

With slow tread and still tread, he scans the tented line, 

And he counts the battery guns by the gaunt and shadowy 

pine ; 
And his slow tread and still tread gives no warning sign. 

The dark wave, the plumed wave, it meets his eager glance ; 
And it sparkles 'neath the stars like the glimmer of a lance, 
A dark wave, a plumed wave, on an emerald expanse. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 457 

A sharp clang, a steel clang, and terror in the sound, 

For the sentry, falcon-eyed, in the camp a spy hath found ; 

With a sharp clang, a steel clang, the patriot is bound. 

With calm brow, steady brow, he listens to his doom ; 

In his look there is no fear, nor a shadow-trace of gloom ; 

But with calm brow and steady brow he robes him for the tomb. 

In the long night, the still night, he kneels upon the sod ; 
And the brutal guards withhold e'en the solemn Word of God. 
In the long night, the still night, he walks where Christ hath 
trod. 

'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn, he dies upon the tree ; 
And he mourns that " he can lose but one life for Liberty ;" 
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn, his spirit- wings are free. 

From the Fame-leaf and the Angel-leaf, from monument to urn, 
The sad of earth, the glad of heaven, his tragic fate shall learn ; 
And on Fame-leaf and on Angel-leaf the name of Hale shall burn. 

' Francis Miles Finch. 



CALDWELL OP SPRINGFIELD. 

Here's the spot. Look around you. Above, on the height, 
Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the right 
Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall, — 
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball. 
Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow, 
Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 

Nothing more, did I say? Stay, one moment; you've heard 

Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the Word 

Down at Springfield ? What ! no ? Come, that's bad ! Why, he 

had 
All the Jerseys aflame ! and they gave him the name 
Of " the rebel high-priest." He stuck in their gorge, 
For he loved the Lord God, and he hated King George I 



458 PATRIOTIC READER. 

He had cause, you might say ! When the Hessians that day 
Marched up with Knyphausen, they stopped on their way 
At the "farms," where his wife, with a child in her arms, 
Sat alone in the house. How it happened, none knew 
But God, and that one of the hireling crew 
Who fired the shot. Enough ! there she lay, 
And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away ! 

Did he preach, — did he pray? Think of him, as you stand 
By the old church, to-day ; think of him, and that band 
Of militant ploughboys ! See the smoke and the heat 
Of that reckless advance, — of that straggling retreat ! 
Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain, in your view, — 
And what could you, what should you, what would you do ? 

Why, just what he did ! They were left in the lurch 
For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church, 
Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road 
With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load 
At their feet ! Then above all the shouting and shots 
Eang his voice, — " Put Watts into 'em ! — Boys, give 'em Watts ! 

And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow, 

Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 

You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball, 

But not always a hero like this, — and that's all. 

Brkt Harte. 



THE LAY OF GROTON HEIGHT. 

(Eead at Centennial Celebration, 1881. Extract furnished at request for 
the " Patriotic Reader.") 

The word went forth from the throne : 
" Desolate 1 desolate! 
Smite, burn, destroy, till their woes shall atone 
For the woe and shame of the State I 
They have shamed the arms of their king ; 
They have flouted the terms we bring : 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 459 

High time that vengeance should have full swing 
Over small and great ! 

" Heap down their crops with your swords I 

Harry I ravage ! 
Hound on the rage of your hireling hordes, — 
and savage /" 



So the blaze of Fairfield flushed the sky ; 
New Haven's smoke went rolling high ; 
Far Norwalk cried with a bitter cry ; 
And the sons of the Puritan pioneers 
Saw the toil and thrift of a hundred years 

Spoiled in an hour. . . . 
****** 

Well, at last drew on the day, 

Dark with ill omen. 
Off the mouth of the bay, 
Flapping their wings in the gray 
Like carrion birds, they lay, — 

The ships of the foeman. 
" To talk of defence were wild ; 
"We are beaten, plundered, defiled ; 
They spare not the old, nor the sick, nor the child, 
Nor the woman !" 

Not so spoke Ledyard, brave soul, 

Our noble commander. 
History, point, on your roll, 

To a nobler or grander ! 
He stepped from his farm-house door, 
A hero like those of yore. 
Oh, fair was the look of grace that he wore, 
And of candor ! 

Now briskly he spoke to his troops, — 

Not a sigh, not a frown. 
No thought or of fears or of hopes, 

But of honor and duty alone. 



460 PATRIOTIC READER. 

No question of gain or loss ; — 
Only Home and the righteous cause ; 
So he signalled the handful of gunners across 
From the battery under the town. 

Few, few, in the big redoubt, 

The sons of the Puritans stood, 
And over the parapet-wall looked out 

Beyond the fringe of the wood ; 
Saw the enemy's blood-red lines uncoil 
And wind out snake-like over the soil ; 

Heard the shrill fifes piping scorn ; 

Saw the steel flash back the morn, 
And the cruel cross before them borne, — 

The cross in a field of blood ; 

Looked town-ward over the bay ; 

Along the country roads 
Saw women and children running away 

With bits of their household goods ; 

Saw the red-coats and Hessians 
Dragging through dust and mire 

The spoil of their poor possessions ; 
And at last — the fire ! 



. . . The terrible fight 

Had been fought and lost, — 
The brave, brave fight for the right, 
There upon Groton Height, 

And oh, the cost! 
Men came from the smouldei-ing town, 
From the hills and the woods came down, 

When the enemy had crossed ; 
And there, in the autumn weather, 
Lay the dead all tumbled together, 

Stripped and mangled and tossed. 

Two-score widows of Groton-town 
Walked 'mid the corpses up and down ; 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 461 

Turned the dead faces up to the light, 
Calling, calling into the night ; 

Listening for word or voice 
From husband, or father, or boys ; 
Waiting, speaking, 
Questioning, seeking 
Over the torn sod, reeking 
With the blood of Groton Height, 

And there by the sally-port, 

Where the foe had entered the fort, 

Lay Ledyard, gallant knight, 

His bosom gored by his own brave sword, 

And his hero-blood on the ground outpoured, 

For the right. 

Leonard Woolsey Bacon. 



THE SOLDIER'S DREAM. 

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered, 
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky ; 

And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, 
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. 

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw, 
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain, 

At the dead of the night, a sweet vision I saw, 
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again. 

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, 
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track ; 

'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way 

To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. 

I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft 

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young, 

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, 

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. 



462 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore 

From my home and my weeping friends never to part ; 

My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er, 
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. 

" Stay, stay with us, rest, thou art weary and worn!" 
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay, — 

But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, 
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away ! 

Thomas Campbell. 



CRESCENTIUS. 



(Sismondi, in his "Italian Republics," says that " Crescentius, who ob- 
tained the title of Consul a.d. 980, attempted to restore Rome to her former 
liberty and glory. He capitulated to Emperor Otho III., and was put to 
death.") 

I looked upon his brow, — no sign 

Of guilt or fear was there ; 
He stood as proud by that death-shrine 

As even o'er despair 
He had a power ; in his eye 
There was a deathless energy, 

A spirit that could dare 
The deadliest form that death could take, 
And dare it for the daring's sake. 

He stood, the fetters on his hand, — 

He raised them haughtily ; 
And had that grasp been on the brand, 

It could not wave on high 
With freer pride than it waved now. 
Around he looked with changeless brow 

On many a torture nigh, — 
The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel, 
And, worst of all, his own red steel. 

1 saw him once before ; he rode 
Upon a coal-black steed, 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 463 

And tens of thousands thronged the road, 

And bade their warrior speed. 
His helm, his breastplate, were of gold, 
And graved with many a dint, that told 

Of many a soldier's deed ; 
The sun shone on his sparkling mail, 
And danced his snow-plume on the gale. 

But now he stood, chained and alone, 

The headsman by his side ; 
The plume, the helm, the charger gone , 

The sword that had defied 
The mightiest, lay broken near ; 
And yet no sign or sound of fear 

Came from that lip of pride ; 
And never king or conqueror's brow 
"Wore higher look than his did now. 

He bent beneath the headsman's stroke 

With an uncovered eye ; 
A wild shout from the numbers broke 

Who thronged to see him die. 
It was a people's loud acclaim, 
The voice of anger and of shame, 

A nation's funeral cry, — 
Eome's wail above her only son, 
Her patriot. — and her latest one. 

Lktitia Elizabeth Landon. 



OUR FATHERS' GOD. 
HYMN OF THE VATJDOIS MOUNTAINEERS. 

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 

God. 
Thou hast made Thy children mighty by the touch of the 

mountain sod, 



464 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge where the spoiler's foot ne'er 

trod ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 

God. 

We are watchers of a beacon whose light must never die ; 
We are guardians of an altar 'midst the silence of the sky ; 
The rocks yield founts of courage, struck forth as by thy rod ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 
God. 

For the dark-resounding caverns, where Thy still, small voice is 

heard ; 
For the strong pines of the forests, that by Thy breath are 

stirred ; 
For the storms, on whose free pinions thy spirit walks abroad ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 

God. 

The roj^al eagle darteth on his quarry from the heights, 

And the stag that knows no master seeks there his wild de- 
lights ; 

But we for Thy communion have sought the mountain sod ; 

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 
God. 

The banner of the chieftain far, far below us waves ; 
The war-horse of the spearman cannot reach our lofty caves ; 
The dark clouds wrap the threshold of Freedom's last abode ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 

G.»d. 

For the shadow of Thy presence, round our camp of rock out- 
spread ; 

For the stern defiles of battle, bearing record of our dead ; 

For the snows, and for the torrents, for the free heart's burial 
sod; 

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers' 

God. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 465 



UNION AND LIBERTY. 

Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, 

Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame, 
Blazoned in song and illumined in glory, 
Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame. 
Chorus. — Up with our banner bright, 
Sprinkled with starry light, 
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, 
While through the sounding sky 
Loud rings the nation's ciy, 
Union and Liberty, one evermore ! 

Light of our firmament, guide of our nation, 

Pride of her children, and honored afar, 
Let the wide beams of thy full constellation 

Scatter each cloud that would darken a star. 
Chorus. 

Empire unsceptred, what foe shall assail thee, 

Bearing the standard of Liberty's van ? 
Think not the G-od of thy fathers shall fail thee, 

Striving with men for the birthright of man. 
Chorus. 

Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, 

Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, 

Then with the arms to thy millions united, 
Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law. 
Chorus. 

Lord of the Universe, shield us and guide us, 

Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun. 
Thou hast united us, who shall divide us? 
Keep us, oh, keep us the many in one. 
Chorus. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



466 PATRIOTIC READER. 



POLISH WAR-SONG. 

Freedom calls you ! Quick, be ready I 

Rouse ye, iu the name of G-od ! 
Onward, onward, strong and steady, 
Dash to earth the oppressor's rod ! 
Freedom calls ! yo brave ! ye brave ! 
Rise, and spurn the name of slave. 

Grasp the sword ! its edge is keen ; 

Seize the gun ! its ball is true : 
13weep your land from tyrant clean, 

Haste, and scour it through and through ! 
Onward ! onward ! Freedom cries. 
Rush to arms, the tyrant flies. 

By the souls of patriots gone, 

Wake, arise, your fetters break ! 
Kosciusko bids you on, 
Sobieski cries, Awake ! 

Rise, and front the despot czar, 
Rise, and dare the unequal war. 

Freedom calls you ! Quick, be ready ! 
Think of what your sires have been. 
Onward, onward ! strong and steady, 
Drive the tyrant to his den. 
On, and let the watchword be, 
Country, home, and liberty ! 

James Gates Percival. 



BRUCE AND THE SPIDER. 

For Scotland's and for freedom's right 
The Bruce his part had played, 

In five successive fields of fight 
Been conquered and dismayed. 

Once more against the English host 

His band he led, and once more lost 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 467 

The meed for which he fought ; 
And now, from battle, faint and worn, 
The homeless fugitive forlorn 

A hut's lone shelter sought. 

And cheerless was that resting-place 

For him who claimed a throne ; 
His canopy, devoid of grace, 

The rude, rough beams alone ; 
The heather couch his only bed, — 
Yet well I ween had slumber fled 

From couch of eider-down : 
Through darksome night till dawn of day, 
Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay 

Of Scotland and her crown. 

The sun rose brigbtly, and its gleam 

Fell on that hapless bed, 
And tinged with light each shapeless beam 

Which roofed the lowly shed ; 
When, looking up with wistful eye, 
The Bruce beheld a spider try 

His filmy thread to fling 
From beam to beam of that rude cot ; 
And well the insect's toilsome lot 

Taught Scotland's future king. 

Six times his gossamery thread 

The wary spider threw : 
In vain the filmy line was sped, 

For powerless or untrue 
Each aim appeared, and back recoiled 
The patient insect, six times foiled, 

And yet unconquered still ; 
And soon the Bruce, with eager eye, 
Saw him prepare once more to try 

His courage, strength, and skill. 

One effort more, his seventh and last; 
The hero hailed the sign. 



468 PATRIOTIC READER. 

• And on the wished-for beam hung fast 

That slender, silken line ; 
Slight as it was, his spirit caught 
The more than omen, for his thought 

The lesson well could trace, 

Which even " he who runs may read," 

That Perseverance gains its meed, 

And Patience wins the race. 

Bernard Barton. 



UNION SONG OF THE CELT. 

Hail ! brightest banner that floats on the gale I 
Flag of the country of Washington, hail! 
Eed are thy stripes with the blood of the brave, 
Bright are thy stars as the sun on the wave ; 
Wrapt in thy folds are the hopes of the free. 
Banner of Washington ! blessings on thee ! 

Mountain-tops mingle the sky with their snow; 
Prairies lie smiling in sunshine below ; 
Rivers, as broad as the sea, in their pride, 
Border thine empires, but do not divide ; 
Niagara's voice far out-anthems the sea ; 
Land of sublimity ! blessings on thee ! 

Hope of the world ! on thy mission sublime, 
When thou didst burst on the pathway of time, 
Millions from darkness and bondage awoke ; 
Music was first born when liberty spoke ; 
Millions to come shall yet join in the glee : 
Land of the pilgrims' hope ! blessings on thee ! 

Traitors shall perish, and treason shall fail ; 
Kingdoms and thrones in thy glory grow pale ! 
Thou shalt live on, and thy people shall own 
Loyalty's sweet, when each heart is thy throne ; 
Union and freedom thine heritage be. 
Country of Washington ! blessings on thee I 

William E. Robinson. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 469 



ST. PATRICK'S DAY. 

Oh, blest be the days when the green banner floated 

Sublime o'er the mountains of free Innisfail, 
When her sons, to her glory and freedom devoted, 

Defied the invader to tread on her soil, 
When back o'er the main they chased the Dane, 

And gave to religion and learning their spoil, 
When valor and mind together combined. 

But wherefore lament o'er the glories departed ? 
Her star shall shine out with as vivid a ray, 

For ne'er had she children more brave and true-hearted 
Than those she now sees on St. Pati-ick's Day. 

Her sceptre, alas ! passed away to the stranger, 

And treason surrendered what valor had held ; 
But true hearts remained amid darkness and danger, 

Which, spite of her tyrants, would never be quelled. 
Oft, oft, through the night flashed gleams of light, 

Which almost the darkness of bondage dispelled ; 
But a star now is near, her heaven to cheer, 

Not like the wild gleams which so fitfully darted, 
But long to shine down with its hallowing ray 

On daughters as fair and sons as true-hearted 
As Erin beholds on St. Patrick's Day. 

Oh, blest be the hour when, begirt by her cannon, 

And hailed, as it rose, by a nation's applause, 
That flag waved aloft o'er the spire of Dungannon, 

Asserting for Irishmen, Irish laws ! 
Once more shall it wave, o'er hearts as brave, 

Despite of the dastards who mock at her cause, 
And like brothers, agreed, whatever their creed, 

Her children, inspired by those glories departed, 
No longer in darkness desponding will stay, 

But join in her cause like the brave and true-hearted 
Who rise for their rights on St. Patrick's Day. 

M. J. Barry. 



470 PATRIOTIC READER. 



MARSEILLES HYMN. 

Ye sons of France, awake to glory. 

Hark, hark, what myriads bid you rise ! 
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, — 

Behold their tears and hear their cries. 
Shall hateful tyrants mischiefs breeding, 
With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, 
Affright and desolate the land, 
While peace and liberty lie bleeding ? 
Chorus. — To arms, to arms, ye brave ! 

Th' avenging sword unsheathe ! 
March on, march on, all hearts resolved 
On victory or death ! 

Now, now the dangerous storm is rolling 
Which treacherous kings confederate raise ; 

The dogs of war, let loose, are howling, 
Aid lo, our walls and cities blaze. 

And shall we basely view the ruin, 
While lawless force, with guilty stride, 
Spreads desolation far and wide, 

With crimes and blood bis hands imbruing ? 
Chorus. 

With luxury and pride surrounded, 

The vile, insatiate despots dare, 
Their thirst of gold and power unbounded, 

To mete and vend the light and air. 
Like beasts of burden would they load us, 

Like gods, would bid their slaves adore; 

But man is man, and who is more ? 
Then, shall they longer lash and goad us ? 
Chorus. 

Liberty, can man resign thee, 

Once having felt thy generous flame ? 

Can dungeons, bolts, or bars confine thee ? 
Or whips thy noble spirit tame ? 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 471 

Too long the world has wept, bewailing 
That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield, — 
But freedom is our sword and shield, 

And all their arts are unavailing. 

Chorus. 

Rouget de Lisle. 



THE SPANISH PATRIOTS' SONG. 

Hark ! hear ye the sounds that the winds, on their pinions, 

Exultingly roll from the shore to the sea, 
With a voice that resounds through her boundless dominions ? 

'Tis Columbia calls on her sons to be free ! 

Behold, on yon summits, whei*e Heaven has throned her, 
How she starts from her proud, inaccessible seat, 

With nature's impregnable ramparts around her, 
And the cataract's thunder and foam at her feet ! 

In the breeze of her mountains her loose locks are shaken, 
While the soul-stirring notes of her warrior-song, 

From the rock to the valley, re-echo, " Awaken ! 
Awaken, ye hearts that have slumbered too long!" 

Yes, despots ! too long did your tyranny hold us 
In a vassalage vile, ere its weakness was known, — 

Till we learned that the links of the chain that controlled us 
Were forged by the fears of its captive alone. 

That spell is destroyed, and no longer availing. 

Despised as detested, pause well ere ye dare 
To cope with a people whose spirits and feeling 

Are roused by remembrance and steeled by despair. 

G-o, tame the wild torrent, or stem with a straw 

The proud surges that sweep o'er the strand that confined them 

But presume not again to give freemen a law, 

Nor think with the chains they have broken to bind them. 



472 PATRIOTIC READER. 

To heights by the beacons of Liberty lightened, 

They're a scorn who come up her young eagles to tame ; 

And to swords, that her sons for the battle have brightened, 
The hosts of a king are as flax to a flame. 

Anonymous. 



VIVA ITALIA! VIVA IL RE! 

(Written on the departure of the Austrians from Italy, and the entry of 
the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel, into Venice, November 7, 1866.) 

Haste ! open the lattice, G-iulia, 

And wheel me my chair where the sun 
May fall on my face while I welcome 

The sound of the life-giving gun ! 
The Austrian leaves with the morning, 
And Venice hath freedom to-day, — 
" Viva! e Viva Italia ! 
Viva U Eel" 

Would God that I only were younger, 
To stand with the rest on the street, 
To fling up my cap on the mola, 

And the tricolor banner to greet ! 
The gondolas, girl, — they are passing ! 
And what do the gondoliers say ? — 
" Viva ! e Viva Italia ! 
Alva il Re !" 

Oh, cursed be these years and this weakness 

That shackle me here in my chair, 
When the people's loud clamor is rending 

The chains that once made their despair 1 
So young when the Corsican sold us ! 
So old when the Furies repay I — 
" Viva 1 e Viva Italia ! 
Viva il Re!" 



PATEIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 473 

Not these were the cries when our fathers 

The gonfalon gave to the breeze, 
When doges sate solemn in council, 

And Dandolo harried the seas ! 
But the years of the future are ours, 
To humble the pride of the gray, — 
" Viva ! e Yiva Italia ! 
Viva il Ee !" 

Bring, girl, from the dust of yon closet 

The sword that your ancestor bore 
When Genoa's prowess was humbled, 

Her galleys beat back from our shore ! 
O great Contarino ! your ashes 
To Freedom are given to-day ! 
" Viva ! e Viva Italia ! 
Viva il Ee !" 

What ! tears in your eyes, my G-iulia ? 

You weep when your country is free ? 
You mourn for your Austrian lover, 

Whose face nevermore you shall see ? 
Kneel, girl, kneel beside me, and whisper, 
While to Heaven for vengeance you pray, 
" Viva ! e Viva Italia ! 
Viva il Ee !" 

Shame, shame on the weakness that held you, 

And shame on the heart that was won ! 
No blood of the gonfaloniere 

Shall mingle with blood of the Hun ! 
Swear hate to the name of the spoiler, 
Swear lealty to Venice, and say, 
" Viva ! e Viva Italia ! 
Viva il Ee 1" 

Hark ! heard you the gun from the mola ? 

And hear you the welcoming cheer ? 
Our army is coming, Giulia, 

The friends of our Venice are near I 



474 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Ring out from your old campanile, 
Freed bells from San Marco, to-day, 
" Viva ! e Viva Italia ! 
Viva il Ee I" 

Charles Dimitrt. 



SONG OF THE GREEKS. 
(1822.) 

Again to the battle, Achaians ! 

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance ; 
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree — 
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free ; 

For the cross of our faith is replanted, 

The pale dying crescent is daunted, 
And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves 
May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves. 

Their spirits are hovering o'er us, 

And the sword shall to glory restore us. 

Ah ! what though no succor advances, 
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances 

Are stretched in our aid? — Be the combat our own ! 

And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone : 
For we've sworn, by our country's assaulters, 
By the virgins they've dragged from our altars, 

By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, 

By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins, 
That, living, we shall be victorious, 
Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious. 

A breath of submission we breathe not : 

The sword -that we've drawn we will sheathe not ; 
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, 
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. 

Earth may hide, waves engulf, fire consume us, 

But they shall no1 to slavery doom us: 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 475 

If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves : — 
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves, 

And new triumphs on land are before us. 

To the charge !— Heaven's banner is o'er us. 

This day — shall ye blush for its story ? 

Or brighten your lives with its glory? — 
Our women — oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, 
Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair ? 

Accursed may his memory blacken, 

If a coward there be that would slacken, 
Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth 
Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth. 

Strike home ! — and the world shall revere us 

As heroes descended from heroes. 

Old Greece lightens up with emotion ; 
Her inlands, her isles of the ocean, 
Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring, 
And the Nine shall new-hallow their Helicon's spring. 
Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness, 
That were cold and extinguished in sadness, 
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms, 
Siuging joy to the brave that delivered their charms, 
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens 
Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens. 

Thomas Campbell. 



HABMOSAN. 



Now the third and fatal conflict for the Persian throne was done, 
And the Moslem's fiery valor had the crowning victory won ; 

Harmosan, the last of foemen, and the boldest to defy, 
Captive, overborne by numbers, they were bringing forth to die. 

Then exclaimed that noble Satrap, " Lo, I perish in my thirst ; 
Give me but one drink of water, and let then arrive the worst." 



476 PATRIOTIC READER. 

In his hand he took the goblet, but awhile the draught forbore, 
Seeming doubtfully the purpose of the victors to explore. 

" But what fear'st thou ?" cried the Caliph : " dost thou dread a 

secret blow ? 
Fear it not ; our gallant Moslems no such treacherous dealings 

know. 

" Thou mayest quench thy thirst securely ; for thou shalt not die 

before 
Thou hast drunk that cup of water : this reprieve is thine, — ho 

more." 

Quick the Satrap dashed the goblet down to earth with ready 

hand, 
And the liquid sunk, — forever lost, amid the burning sand : 

" Thou hast said that mine my life is till the water of that cup 
I have drained : — then bid thy servants that spilled water gather 
up !" 

For a moment stood the Caliph, as by doubtful passions stirred, 
Then exclaimed, " Forever sacred must remain a monarch's word. 

Bring another cup and straightway to the noble Persian give : — 
Drink, I said before, and perish ; — now I bid thee drink and live!" 

Richard Chenevix Trench. 



THE GERMAN'S FATHERLAND. 

What is the German's fatherland ? — 

Is't Prussian land, or Swabian land? 

Where the grape-vine glows on the Rhenish strand ? 

Where the sea-gull flies o'er the Baltic sand ? 

Ah, no ! ah, no ! 

His fatherland must greater be, I trow. 

What is the German's fatherland ? — 
Bavarian land, or Styrian land ? 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 477 

Now Austria it needs must be, 
So rich in fame and victory. 

Ah, no ! ah no ! 

His fatherland must greater be, I trow. 

What is the German's fatherland ? — 
Pomeranian land, Westphalia land ? 
Where o'er the sea-flats the sand is blown ? 
Where the mighty Danube rushes on ? 

Ah, no ! ah, no ! 

His fatherland must greater be, I trow. 

What is the German's fatherland ? — 
Say thou the name of the mighty land. 
Is't Switzerland, or Tyrol, tell :— 
The land and the people pleased me well. 

Ah, no ! ah, no ! 

His fatherland must greater be, I trow. 

What is the German's fatherland ? — 
Name thou at length to me the land. 
Wherever in the German tongue 
To God in heaven hymns are sung !— 

That shall it be, — that shall it be ; 

That, gallant German, is for thee ! 

That is the German's fatherland 
Where binds like an oath the grasped hand, 
Where from men's eyes truth flashes forth, 
Where in men's hearts are love and worth ! — 

That shall it be,— that shall it be ; 

That, gallant German, is for thee ! 

It is the whole of Germany. 
Look, Lord, thereon, we pray to thee. 
Let German spirit in us dwell, 
That we may love it true and well. 

That shall it be, — that shall it be ; 

The whole, the whole of Germany ! 

Ernst Moritz Arndt. 



478 PATEIOTIC READER. 

THE WATCH BY THE RHINE. 

(German National War-Song.) 

A cry bursts forth like thunder-sound, 
Like swords' fierce clash, like waves' rebound, — 
To the Rhine, the Rhine, the German Rhine ! 
To guard the river, who'll combine ? 
Dear Fatherland, good trust be thine, — 
Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 

From myriad mouths the summons flies, 
And brightly flash a myriad eyes : 
Brave, honest, true, the Germans come, 
To guard the sacred bounds of home. 
Dear Fatherland, good trust be thine, — 
Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 

And though the strife bring death to me, 

No foreign river shalt thou be : 

Exhaustless as thy watery flood 

Is German land in hero-blood. 

Dear Fatherland, good trust be thine, — 

Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 

If upward he his glance doth send, 
There hero-fathers downward bend. 
He sweareth, proud to fight his part, 
Thou Rhine, be German, like my heart. 
Dear Fatherland, good trust be thine, — 
Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 

"While yet one drop of blood thou'lt yield, 
While yet one hand the sword can wield, 
While grasps the rifle one bold hand, 
No foe shall tread thy sacred strand. 
Dear Fatherland, good trust bo thine, — 
Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 479 

The oath peals forth, the wave runs by, 

Our flags, unfurled, are waving high. 

To the Rhine, the Ehine, the German Ehine ! 

To keep thee free we'll all combine. 
Dear Fatherland, good trust be thine, — 
Fast stands, and true, the watch by the Rhine. 
Max Schneckenbttrger. (Trans, by H. W. Dugklen.) 



GERMAN BATTLE-PRAYER. 

Father, I cry to thee. 
Cannon-smoke rolleth in clouds o'er me roaring, 
War's jetted lightnings around me are pouring : 
Lord of the battle, I cry to thee, — 

Father, oh, lead thou me. 

Father, oh, lead thou me. 
Lead me as victor, by death when I'm riven, 
Lord, I acknowledge the law thou hast given : 
E'en as thou wilt, Lord, so lead thou me, — 
God, I acknowledge thee. 

God, I acknowledge thee. 
So when the autumn leaves rustle around me. 
So when the- thunders of battle surround me, 
Fountain of grace, I acknowledge thee, — 

Father, oh, bless thou me. 

Father, oh, bless thou me. 
Into thy care commend I my spirit ; 
Thou canst reclaim what from thee I inherit : 
Living or dying, still bless thou me, — 
Father, I worship thee. 



480 PATRIOTIC READEE. 

Father, I worship thee. 
Not for earth's riches thy servants are fighting, 
Holiest cause with our swords we are righting : 
Conquering or falling, 1 worship thee, — 

God, I submit to thee. 

God, I submit to thee. 
When all the terrors of death are assailing, 
When in my veins e'en the life-blood is failing, 
Lord, unto thee will I bow the knee, — 
Father, I cry to thee. 

Karl Theodor Korner. 



PRUSSIAN BATTLE-HYMN. 

Father of earth and heaven ! I call Thy name ! 

Bound me the smoke and shout of battle roll ; 
My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame ! 

Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul. 

( )r life, or death, whatever be the goal 
That crowns or closes round this struggling hour, 

Thou knowest. If ever from my spirit stole 
One deeper prayer, 'twas that no cloud might lower 
On my young fame! — Oh, hear! God of eternal power! 

God ! Thou art merciful. — The wintry storm, 
The cloud that pours the thunder from its womb, 

But show the sterner grandeur of Thy form ; 

The lightnings, glancing through the midnight gloom, 
To faith's raised eye as calm, as lovely come, 

As splendors of the autumnal evening star, 
As roses shaken by the breeze's plume, 

When like cool incense comes the dewy air, 

And on the golden wave the sunset burns afar. 

God ! Thou art mighty ! — At thy footstool bound, 
Lie, gazing to Thee, Chance, and Life, and Death ; 



PATKIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 481 

Nor in the angel-circle flaming round, 

Nor in the million worlds that blaze beneath, 

Is one that can withstand Thy wrath's hot breath. 

"Woe in Thy frown, — in Thy smile victory ! 
Hear my last prayer ! — I ask no mortal wreath : 

Let but these eyes my rescued country see, 

Then take my spirit, All-Omnipotent, to Thee. 

Now for the fight ! — now for the cannon-peal ! — 

Forward ! — through blood, and toil, and cloud, and fire ! 
Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel, 

The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire ! 

They shake, — like broken waves their squares retire. 
On them, hussars ! — Now give them rein and heel ! 

Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire : — 
Earth cries for blood, — in thunder on the wheel ! 
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph-seal! 

Karl Theodor Korner. 



GOD SAVE THE KING. 

The national anthem of Great Britain has become so closely identified with 
the hymn " America" that they seem inseparable, — the music being common 
to both. Neither Henry nor George S. Carey can be credited, clearly, with 
its origin. George S. Carey claimed that his father was the author. The fol- 
lowing words by Eev. W. D. Tattersall, harmonized by T. S. Dupuis, Doctor 
of Music, were used in London in January, 1793, three of the verses being 
nearly the same as those used about the year 1745, in the reign of George II. 

VEKSION OF 1793. 

God save great George our King, 
Long live our noble King, 

God save the King ! 
Send him victorious, 
Happy and glorious, 
Long to reign over us, 

God save the King ! 
31 



482 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Let Discord's lawless train 
Know their vile arts are vain, 

Britain is free ; 
Confound their politics, 
Frustrate their knavish tricks, 
With equal laws we mix 

True Liberty. 

England's stanch soldiery, 
Proof against treachery, 

Bravely unite ; 
Firm in his country's cause, 
His sword each hero draws, 
To guard our King and laws 

From factious might. 

When insults rise to wars, 
Oak-hearted British tars 

Scorn to be slaves ; 
Banged in our wooden walls, 
Beady when duty calls 
To send their cannon-balls 

O'er Ocean's waves. 

O Lord our God, arise, 
Scatter our enemies, 

And make them fall. 
Cause civil broils to cease, 
Commerce and trade t' increase 
With plenty, joy, and peace, 

God bless us all. 

Gracious to this famed isle, 
On our loved Monarch smile, 

With mildest rays ; 
Oh, let thy light divine 
On Brunswick's royal line 
With cheering influence shine 

To latest days. 



PATEIOTIC AND NATIONAL HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 483 

PRESENT VERSION. 
God save our gracious Queen, 
Long live our noble Queen, 

(rod save the Queen ! 
Send her victorious, 
Happy and glorious, 
Long to reign over us ! 

God save the Queen ! 

O Lord our God, arise, 
Scatter her enemies, 

And make them fall. 
Confound their politics, 
Frustrate their knavish tricks, 
On Thee our hopes we fix, 

Oh, save us all. 

Thy choicest gifts in store 
On her be pleased to pour. 

Long may she reign ! 
May she defend our laws, 
And ever give us cause 
To sing with heart and voice, 

God save the Queen ! 



PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE. 

Heard ye those loud-contending waves 
That shook Cecropia's pillared state ? 

Saw ye the mighty from their graves 
Look up, and tremble for her fate ? 

Who shall calm the angry storm? 
Who the mighty task perform, 

And bid the raging tumult cease ? 
See the son of Hermes rise, 
With siren tongue, and speaking eyes, 

Hush the noise, and soothe to peace ! 



484 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Lo ! from the regions of the North 
The reddening storm of battle pours, 

Rolls along the trembling earth, 
Fastens on the Olynthian towers. 

Where rests the sword ? — where sleep the brave ? 
Awake! Ceeropia's ally save 

From the fury of the blast. 
Bursts the storm on Phocis' walls. 
Rise ! or Greece forever falls. 

Up ! or Freedom breathes her last. 

The jarring States, obsequious now, 
View the Patriot's hand on high, 

Thunder gathering on his brow, 
Lightning flashing from his eye ! 

Borne by the tide of words along, 

One voice, one mind, inspire the throng : 

"To arms! to arms! to arms!" they cry, — 
" Grasp the shield and draw the sword, 
Lead us to Philippi's lord, 

Let us conquer him, or die." 

Ah, Eloquence, thou wast undone, 
Wast from thy native country driven, 

When Tyranny eclipsed the sun 

And blotted out the stars of heaven. 

When Liberty from Greece withdrew, 
And o'er the Adriatic flew, 

To where the Tiber pours his urn, 
She struck the rude Tarpeian rock : 
Sparks were kindled by the shock, — 

Again thy fires began to burn. 

Now, shining forth, thou mad'st compliant 
The Conscript Fathers to thy charms, 

Roused the world-bestriding giant, 
Sinking fast in Slavery's arms. 



PATRIOTIC AND NATIONAL, HYMNS, SONGS, AND ODES. 485 

I see thee stand by Freedom's fane, 
Pouring the persuasive strain, 

Giving vast conceptions birth. 
Hark ! I hear thy thunder's sound 
Shake the Forum round and round, 

Shake the pillars of the earth ! 

First-born of Liberty divine, 

Put on Eeligion's bright array ; 
Speak, and the starless grave shall shine, 

The portal of eternal day. 

Eise, kindling with the orient beam ; 
Let Calvary's hill inspire the theme ; 

Unfold the garments rolled in blood. 
Oh, touch the soul, touch all her chords 
With all the omnipotence of words, 

And point the way to heaven — to God. 

Anonymous. 



THE PATRIOTIC DEAD. 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blessed ! 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Eeturns to deck their hallowed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 

By fairy hands their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
And Freedom shall awhile repair 
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there. 

William Collins. 



PART XIII. 

AMERICA SURVIVES THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING 
SYSTEMS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

On the Fourth of July, 1888, the battle-field of Gettysburg 
was made memorial of the prediction uttered by President 
Lincoln at its dedication as a national cemetery in 1864, that 
" The nation shall, under God, have a new birth of power ; and 
that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth." 

The contest of 1861-65 removed from the national life that 
serious element of danger which the fathers left for their pos- 
terity to settle. The rights of all sections rested upon one 
charter. The moral law of abstract right did not harmonize 
with the possessory rights of a well-accepted legal status, and 
only a charity and wisdom more than human could bring a full 
accord without the crucial test of arms. The more powerful 
North bent its vast energies of numbers and wealth to preserve 
the Union of the States. The South, inferior in numbers and 
resources, affirmed with equal spirit its right of withdrawal, 
unless the legal tolerations of the Constitution should have their 
fullest effect. The issue joined, satisfied all interests, after mar- 
vellous sacrifice ; and the Union is clothed with fresh strength 
and more permanent beauty. Already a sense of relief from the 
estrangement of brethren which harassed the original colonies, 
and worried the nation to the verge of ruin, inspires poets and 
orators with enlarged faith in the national future. Already the 
republic, purified by fire and by blood, looks backward, to honor 
with fresh enthusiasm each recurring anniversary of the nation's 
birth, and then, in the glory of a second birth, turns forward, to 
486 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 487 

concentrate its vision, as through the perspective glass of Bun- 
yan, upon the development of an " indestructible Union of in- 
destructible States." 

The ordeal of arms came to an end ! The lingering oi'deal of 
cooling passion has entered upon a fraternal solution. Impartial 
history softens the hardness of old-time antagonisms, and mag- 
nifies the patriotism of a people which can conquer self to bless 
the many. Mr. Curtis, the orator of Gettysburg, only voiced the 
sentiment of all " good- willing men on earth" as he said, " If 
there be joy in heaven this day, it is in the heart of Abraham 
Lincoln as he looks down upon the field of Gettysburg." To 
General Gordon, the very ground seemed holy, as if the union 
of the Blue and the Gray, in dust, only typified a spiritual union 
above, and their benediction on the survivors who gain a more 
enduring fellowship through their mingled blood. " No conflict 
now !" was the breathing of General Devens when he welcomed 
the visiting soldiers of the South at the Bunker Hill celebration 
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, June 17, 1875. " The moral sen- 
timent of the nineteenth century has ended slavery !" was the 
great utterance of Justice Lamar, as he unveiled the statue of 
John C. Calhoun, at Charleston, South Carolina, April 26, 1888. 
The heart-longing of Alexander H. Stephens, as he watched the 
unveiling of Carpenter's picture of the Signing of the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation, " Separate as billows, but one as the sea !" 
finds responsive prayer in every loyal American soul. " Again 
brethren and equals !" rings out, in the voice of ex-Senator Pat- 
terson, while he assists to dedicate a monument to the sons of 
New Hampshire who fell in the great contest. " Under the same 
banner now, its folds unrent, and its bright stars unobscured," 
is the sentiment through which Governor Eoss, of Texas, calls 
upon the veterans of Hood's Texas brigade, July 4, 1887, to 
welcome their brethren of the North into a full identity of in- 
terest, State and national. "Let us rejoice together!" is the 
jubilant refrain of General George A. Sheridan in his apotheosis 
to " Immortal Heroes," when, with outstretched arm, he swings 
out the banner of our love, that all shall see in its clustered con- 
stellation the full roster of all the planets present. 

The homes of the North are still mourning, and the annual 
Memorial Days are observed with reverence and floral offerings 



488 PATRIOTIC READER. 

to its honored dead ! The homes of the South are no less truly 
the shrines where loving hearts and gentle hands entwine gar- 
lands for the tombs of heroic lovers, husbands, sons, and fathers ! 
The words of William H. Fleming on a Memorial Day, at 
Augusta, Georgia, April 28, 1885, need but slight verbal change 
to embody the sentiment of every charitable, unselfish citizen of 
America : 

" Without abating one jot or tittle of loyal devotion to the 
memory of our Confederate dead, we can here, in the presence 
of their graves, turn our eyes to heaven and exclaim, Thank 
God ! slavery, that material curse and moral incubus, has been 
lifted from our land ! Thank God ! that black cloud has van- 
ished from our sky ! Yes ! even though it could spend its fury 
only in the lightning and thunder of war. 

" No State will ever again resort to secession from the Union 
as a remedy for wrongs, present or prospective. Mr. Webster's 
prayer is answered ; for the sun will never again shine upon 
' the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; 
upon States discordant, dissevered, belligerent.' The motto 
upon the ensign of the republic, now full high advanced, is, by 
universal consent, 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable.' " 

The dream of the Massachusetts poet, Duganne, had its mar- 
vellous realization ; but the soldiers and statesmen of all sections 
now sympathize with all bereaved ones, and recognize the valor 
of all who passed under the flail of discipline which his enthusiasm 
invoked. 



HARVEST AND VINTAGE. 

I dreamed of a wonderful harvest, — 

I dreamed of a threshing-floor, 
Where men, like grain, by Angels twain, 

Were gathered in measureless store, 
All bound in sheaves, like corn in the leaves, 

And flayed from husk to core ; 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 489 

And the Angels sang, with voices sweet, 
" Out of the grain, the Dross we beat, 
Out of the chaff, we winnow the Wheat ; 
True souls are the Wheat of the Nation." 

I dreamed of a wonderful vintage, — 

I dreamed of a wine-press red, 
Where men, like grapes, by Angel shapes, 

Were trodden with wrathful tread ; — 
As gi*apes ye work, to must and murk, 

And crush them shred by shred ; 
And the Angels sang, with tongues divine, 
" Out of the murk, the Must we fine, — 
Out of the grapes, we mellow the Wine ; 
Brave hearts are the Wine of the Nation." 

I would that my dreams were real, — 

That Angels this land might beat, 
And scourge our sod with the flails of God, 

And scatter the chaff from the wheat, — 
And mightily tread, in one wine-press red, 

All dross beneath their feet, — 
That our souls might sing, in joyous strain, 
" Out of the chaff, the Wheat we gain, 
Out of the murk, the Wine we drain, 
The Wheat and the Wine of the Nation." 

I pray that the Angel of Freedom 

May strive with the Angel of War, 
Till men, like grain, these winnowers twain 

Shall flail from husk to core, — 
Till men, like wine, in libations divine, 

To Thee, O God, they pour, 
And forever sing, with tongues divine, — 
" God of the True, this Wheat is Thine ! 
God of the Free, receive this Wine ! — 
The Heart and the Soul of the Nation !" 

Augustine Joseph Hinckley Duqanne. 



490 PATRIOTIC READER. 



GETTYSBURG A MECCA FOR THE BLUE AND 
THE GRAY. 

(From Address of General Gordon, of Georgia, at Gettysburg, July 3, 1888.) 

Mr. President and Fellow-Soldiers, — 

I greet you to-night with far less trepidation and infinitely 
more pleasure than in the early days of July, 1863, when I last 
met you at Gettysburg. I came then, as now, to meet the 
soldiers of the Union army. It would be useless to attempt 
utterance of the thoughts which now thrill my spirit. The 
temptation is, to draw the contrast between the scenes which 
then were witnessed, and those which greet us here ; to speak 
of the men with whom I then marched, and of those whom we 
met; of those who have survived, to meet again, twenty-five 
years later, and of those who here fought and fell ; of the con- 
trast made by this mass of manly cordiality and good-fellow- 
ship, with the long line of dusty uniforms which then stood 
in battle-array beneath bristling bayonets and spread ensigns, 
moving in awful silence, and with sullen tread, to grapple each 
other in deadly conflict. 

I would speak of all these, and of the motives which impelled 
each, or of the swaying tides of the three days' battles, and of 
its preponderating influence in turning the scales of war. The 
nature of the pleasing duty assigned me forbids this. There is, 
however, one suggestion which dominates my thought at this 
hour. Of all the martial virtues, the one which is perhaps most 
characteristic of the truly brave, is the virtue of magnanimity. 
" My fairest earldom would I give to bid Clan-Alpine's chieftain 
live," was the noble sentiment attributed to Scotland's magnani- 
mous monarch, as he stood gazing into the face of his slain an- 
tagonist. That sentiment, immortalized by Scott in his musical 
and martial verse, will associate, for all time, the name of Scot- 
land's king with those of the great spirits of the past. 

How grand the exhibitions of the same generous impulses, 
that characterize this memorable battle-field! My fellow-coun- 
trymen of the North, if I may be permitted to speak for those 
whom I represent, let me assure you that, in the profoundest 
depths of their nature, they reciprocate that generosity, with 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 491 

all the manliness and sincerity of which brave men are capable. 
In token of that sincerity they join in consecrating, for annual 
patriotic pilgrimage, these historic heights, which drank such 
copious draughts of American blood, poured so freely in dis- 
charge of duty, as each conceived it, — a Mecca for the North, 
which so grandly defended, — a Mecca for the South, which so 
bravely and persistently stormed it. 

We join you in setting apart this land as an enduring monu- 
ment of peace, brotherhood, and perpetual union. I repeat the 
thought, with additional emphasis, with singleness of heart and 
of purpose, in the name of a common country, and of universal 
human liberty; and, by the blood of our fallen brothers, we 
unite in the solemn consecration of these hallowed hills, as a 
holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity 

of this cherished republic. 

John Brown Gordon. 



The words of Wellesley Bradshaw, written for the occasion, 
voice the sentiment of the American people : 



WAKE THEM IN PEACE TO-DAY. GOD BLESS 
THEM ALL!" 

Sound, bugles I sound again ! 
Rouse them to life again, 

Awake them all ! 
Here, where the Blue and Gray 
Struggled in fierce array, 
Wake them in peace to-day : 

God bless them all ! 

Sound, bugles ! sound again ! 
Sound o'er these hills again, 

Where gather all ; — 
Those who are left to-day, 
Left of the battle's fray, 
Left of the Blue and Gray : 

God bless them all I 



492 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Sound, bugles ! sound again ! 
Bid all unite again, — 

Like brothers, all ; — 
Here, clasping hands, to-day, 
With love for Blue and Gray, 
Dead is all hate to-day : 

God bless them all ! 

Sound, bugles ! sound again ! 
Gladly, oh, sound again 

And welcome all ; — ■ 
No matter how they fought, 
God us the lesson taught, 
He guided what they wrought: 

God bless them all I 



THE GREAT QUESTION SETTLED.— THROUGH 
GETTYSBURG TO A GRANDER UNION. 

(Extracts from Address of George "William Curtis, delivered at the Quarter- 
Centenary of the Battle of Gettysburg, before the Veterans of the Army of 
the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, July 3, 1888, and by per- 
mission edited for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

Upon this field, consecrated by American valor, we meet 
to consecrate ourselves to American Union. In this hallowed 
ground lie buried not only brave soldiers of the blue and the 
o-ray, but the passions of war, the jealousies of sections, and 
the bitter root of all our national differences, — human slavery. 
Here, long and angry controversies of political dogma, of ma- 
terial interest, and of local pride and tradition, came to their 
decisive struggle. . . . 

The great question is settled. Other questions, indeed, remain, 
which will sternly try our patriotism and our wisdom ; but they 
will be appealed to the ordeal of battle no longer. They will be 
settled in those peaceful, popular, and parliamentary contentions 
which befit a patriotic and intelligent republican people. . . . 



THE ORDEAL. OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 493 

Even the civil war has but quickened and deepened our pros- 
perous activities. Those mighty armies of the blue and the 
gray, marshalled for the warfare of a generation, if such had 
been decreed, swiftly and noiselessly disappeared; and all that 
military energy and discipline and skill, streaming into a thou- 
sand industries, are as beneficent in peace, as they were terrible 
in war. What prouder spectacle is there for America! what 
vision could more worthily stimulate devout gratitude in every 
American heart, than that of the States south of the Potomac, 
which, after the fierce and wasting stress of four years of war 
upon their soil, after the total overthrow of their ancient in- 
dustrial system, the destruction of their wealth, the complete 
paralysis of their business energies, are rising together like a 
brood of Titans, and, under the inspiration of liberty, peace, and 
assured union, are renewing the wonderful tale of the earlier 
years of the century, the progress and development of the great 
West 1 The power and resources of those States, in war, seem 
to have revealed to them their unsuspected skill and force, in 
peace. The vigor, the tenacity, the ability, that contested vic- 
tory upon this field, for those famous three days, are now work- 
ing the greater miracles of industrial enterprise. Never before 
was the sword beaten into so vast a ploughshare, nor the spear 
into so prodigious a pruning-hook. . . . 

Can we wrest from the angel of this hour any blessing so 
priceless as the common resolution that we shall not have come 
to this consecrated spot only to declare our joy and gratitude, 
nor only to cherish proud and tender memories, but also to 
pledge ourselves to Union, in its sublimest significance ? 

Here, at last, is its sacred secret revealed! It lies in the 
patriotic instinct which has brought to this field the Army of 
Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. It lies in the 
manly emotion with which the generous soldier sees only the sin- 
cerity and the courage of his ancient foe, and scorns suspicion 
of a lingering enmity. It lies in the perfect freedom of speech, 
and perfect fraternity of spirit, which now for three days have 
glowed in these heroic hearts, and echoed in this enchanted 
air. These are the forces that assure the future of our beloved 
country ! May they go before us on our mighty march, a pillar 
of cloud by day, of fire by night ! Happy for us, happy for 



494 PATRIOTIC READER. 

mankind, if we and our children shall comprehend that they 
are the fundamental conditions of the life of the republic ! 

Then — long after — when, in a country whose vast population 
covering the continent with the glory of a civilization which 
the imagination cannot forecast, the completed century of the 
great battle shall be celebrated, the generation which shall gather 
here, in our places, will rise up and call us blessed ! 

Then, indeed, the fleeting angel of this hour will have yielded 
his most precious benediction; and in the field of Gettysburg 
as we now behold it, the blue and the gray blending in happy 
harmony, like the mingling hues of the summer landscape, we 
may see the radiant symbol of the triumphant America of our 
pride, our hope, and our joy ! 

George William Curtis. 



NO CONFLICT NOW. 

(From Oration delivered at Charlestown , Massachusetts, June 17, 1875, at 
the Centennial Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, hy General Devens, 
and edited by permission for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

Welcome to the citizens of every State, alike from those 
which represent the thirteen Colonies, and from the younger 
States of the Union! In the earnest hope that the liberty, 
guarded and sustained by the sanctions of law, which the 
valor of the fathers won for us, and which to-day we hold in 
solemn trust, may be transmitted to endless generations, vre 
have gathered, in this countless throng, representing in its as- 
semblage every portion of our common country. A welcome, 
cordial, generous, and heart-felt, to each and all ! 

Above all. let us strive to maintain and renew the fraternal 
feeling which should exist between all the States of the Union. 
The difficulty which the fathers could not eliminate from the 
problem before them, they dealt with, with all the wisdom and 
foresight they possessed. Two classes of States had their place, 
differing radically in this, that in the one, the system of slavery 
existed. Believing that the whole system would fade before the 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 495 

noble influence of free government, they watched, that when 
that day came, the instrument they signed should bear no trace 
of its existence. It was not so to be ; and the system has passed 
away in the tempest of battle and amid the clang of arms. 

The conflict is over! No harsh punishments have sullied 
the conclusion ! Day by day the material evidences of war fade 
from sight ; the bastions sink to the level of the ground which 
surrounded them; scarp and counterscarp meet in the ditch 
which divided them. So let them pass away, forever ! 

To-day, it is the highest duty of all, no matter on what side 
they were, but, above all, of those who have struggled for the 
preservation of the Union, to strive that it become one of gen- 
erous confidence, in which all the States shall, as of old, stand 
shoulder to shoulder, if need be, against the world in arms. 
Towards those with whom we were lately in conflict, and who 
recognize that the results are to be kept inviolate, there should 
be no feeling of resentment or bitterness. All true men are with 
the South, in demanding for her peace, order, honest and good 
government, and encouraging her in the work of rebuilding all 
that has been made desolate. 

We need not doubt the issue. She will not stand as the 
" Niobe of nations," lamenting her sad fate ; she will not look 
back to deplore a past which cannot, and should not, return ; 
but, with the fire of her ancient courage, she will gird herself 
up to the emergencies of her new situation ; she will unite her 
people by the bonds of that mutual confidence which their 
mutual interests demand, and renew her former prosperity, and 
her rightful influence in the Union. 

Beside those of New England, we are gratified to-day by the 
presence of military organizations from New York and Penn- 
sylvania, from Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, as well 
as by that of distinguished citizens from these and other States 
of the Union. Their fathers were ancient friends of Massachu- 
setts ; it was the inspiration they gave which strengthened the 
heart and nerved the arm of every man in New England. In 
every proper and larger sense, the soil upon which their sons 
stand, to-day, is theirs, as much as ours ; and wherever there 
may have been estrangement, here, at least, we have met on 
common ground. They unite with .us in recognition of the 



496 PATRIOTIC READER. 

great principles of civil and religious liberty, and in pious 
memory of those who vindicated them; they join with us in 
the wish to make of this regenerated Union a power grander 
and more august than its founders dared to hope. 

Standing, always, in generous remembrance of every section 
of the Union, neither now nor hereafter will we distinguish 
between States, or sections, in our anxiety for the glory and 
happiness of all. To-day, upon the verge of the centuries, as 
together we look back upon that which is gone, in deep and 
heart-felt gratitude for the prosperity so largely enjoyed by us, 
so together will we look forward serenely and with confidence 
to that which is advancing. Together will we utter our solemn 
aspiration, in the spirit of the motto of the city which now 
encloses within its limits the battle-field and the town for which 
the battle was fought : " As God was to our fathers, so may He 
be to us." 

Charles Dkvens. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ENDS SLAVERY. 

(Prom Address of Justice Lamar, of the United States Supreme Court, at 
the unveiling of the statue of John Caldwell Calhoun, at Charleston, South 
Carolina, April 26, 1888.) 

Slavery is dead, — buried in a grave that never gives up its 
dead. Let it rest! Yet, if I remain silent, it will be taken as 
an admission that there is one part of Mr. Calhoun's life of 
which it is prudent for his friends to say nothing to the present 
generation. No one would disapprove, and even disdain, such 
silence more than he. With reference to the constitutional 
status of slavery in the States, Mr. Calhoun never entertained 
or expi-essed a sentiment that was not entertained and expressed 
by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, and all the 
eminent statesmen of his time. The only difference between Mr. 
Calhoun, on the one hand, and Webster, Clay, and such states- 
men, on the other, was, that the measures hostile to slavery 
which they sometimes countenanced, and at other times advo- 
cated, he saw and predicted, were in conflict with the guaran- 
tees of the Constitution, and that their direct tendency and 



THE ORDEAL, OP CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 497 

inevitable effect, and, in many cases, avowed motive, was the 
destruction of slavery in the States. And while Mr. Webster 
and Mr. Clay disclaimed any such motive, and denied any such 
probable effects, he declared to Mr. Webster, in debate, that the 
sentiment would grow and increase, until he, Mr. Webster, would 
himself be compelled to succumb, or be swept down beneath it. 

Yain the forms of law, vain the barriers of the Constitution, 
vain the considerations of State policy, vain the eloquence and 
the compromises of statesmen ! His predictions were verified 
to the letter. They were all swept away before the irresisti- 
ble force of the civilization of the nineteenth century, whose 
moral sentiment demanded the extinction of slavery. 

Every benefit which slavery conferred upon those subject to 
it ; all the ameliorating and humanizing tendencies it introduced 
into the life of the African ; all the elevating agencies which 
lifted him higher in the scale of rational moral being, were the 
elements of the future and inevitable destruction of the system. 
The mistake that was made, by the Southern defenders of 
slavery, was in regarding it as a permanent form of society, in- 
stead of a process of emergence and transition from barbarism 
to freedom. If, at this very day, the North, or the American 
Union, were to propose to re-establish the institution, it would 
be impracticable. The South could not and would not accept 
it, as a boon. Slavery, as it existed then, could not exist under 
the present commercial systems of Europe and America. The 
existing industrial relations of capital and labor, had there been 
no secession, no war, would of themselves have brought about 

the death of slavery. 

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. 



AGAIN BRETHREN AND EQUALS. 

(From Address delivered at Dedication of Soldiers' Monument, at Man- 
chester, New Hampshire, hy ex United States Senator Patterson, and edited 
hy permission for the " Patriotic Eeader.") 

The true grandeur of passing historic events is not seen till 
the noise and obstruction of the factitious and perishable are 
32 



498 PATEIOTIC READER. 

forgotten. So the relative importance of our late war is not 
yet realized. Forts and trenches have been obliterated ; harvests 
wave on its battle-fields, and the grass is green above the ashes 
of its victims. The prejudices and passions kindled by the strife 
have been laid, and we now contemplate, with serene and undis- 
tempered vision, the causes and nature of the sanguinary con- 
flict. "We do not forget its burdens ; but we remember its com- 
pensations. The supremacy of the federal government, within 
the limitations of the fundamental law, is the only secure and 
stable foundation of the Union, and it must be maintained with- 
out compromise, in peace, as in war. 

The sons of the South are a noble stock. We respect the 
honesty of their convictions, and honor the virility with which 
they defended them. We would seek the cordial and concilia- 
tory course of kindred, and would let the " dead past bury its 
dead." When the pride of exploded opinions, and the old war- 
cries of party, shall have been silenced in the grave of ante- 
bellum politicians, the new generation will recognize and main- 
tain that sovereignty of the Union which is essential to the 
development and defence of the highest welfare of all sections. 
The foreshadowed destiny of the Nation can only be imperilled 
by the loss of popular intelligence and morality. Common in- 
fluences and interests will assimilate our whole population in 
habits and feeling, and they will come to cherish the same 
objects of pride and aspiration. This will be the future cement 
of the State, and the source of its united strength and glory. 
The day is not far distant when the South, equally with the 
North, will perceive that they builded better than they knew. 

As an exhibition of physical prowess, the contention was 
magnificent ! Both armies fought, for their convictions, with a 
relentlessness of valor, unsurpassed. The campaigns of the war, 
and the subsequent financial achievements, have revealed to 
the world a strength and integrity worthy of the ancient mould 
of men. The blood of the North and the South has mingled in 
a conflict of political principles. May it nourish no root of bitter- 
ness; but may there henceforth be a union of affections and 
labors to advance and perpetuate the dignity and grandeur of 
a common country. I protest, in the name of the dead and the 
peace of posterity, that the issues adjudicated in honorable war- 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 499 

fare shall not be raised again, like unquiet ghosts, into the arena 
of politics, to disturb the peace and prosperity of the Nation. 
We honor the valor and manliness of the South, and will respect 
her rights. We demand the same, and no more. On that plat- 
form we can stand together, and against the world. The sub- 
stantial interests of both sections are one ; and henceforth their 
union should be one, and inseparable. In the fraternal emula- 
tions of business and the healthful rivalries of honorable politics, 
we must labor for the purity, power, and glory of the republic. 
The old hearthstone is broad enough for all, and our household 
gods are worthy of our worship. We feel a special tenderness 
for our native State ; but there is a profounder love and a more 
comprehensive patriotism than this, that throbs in the heart of 
every loyal American. The State is but a unit of that organic 
and august whole, our Country; in whose destiny are involved 
the welfare and power of each member. The bright examples 
and splendid achievements of the Nation must remain ours to 
emulate. "The whole land is the sepulchre of illustrious men," 
and their hallowed dust, not less than their works, and their 
fame, are the common treasure of all. 

The beacons which we kindle will fade, and the chiselled 
rock will crumble ; but the intellectual and moral life, evolved 
by the freedom of the State, will transmit the lineaments of the 
national spirit, in imperishable form of thought. When the 
sculptured marbles, the gorgeous temples, and the noblest monu- 
ments which a proud and grateful country can raise shall have 
completed their short-lived immortality, these will still survive, — 
the inextinguishable lights of a Christian Commonwealth. 

James Willis Patterson. 



" SEPARATE AS BILLOWS, BUT ONE AS THE SEA." 

(From Address by ex United States Senator Stephens at the unveiling of 
Carpenter's picture illustrating Mr. Lincoln's signing the Proclamation of 
Emancipation, February 12, 1878.) 

I knew Mr. Lincoln well. We met in the House, in December, 
1847. We were together during the Thirtieth Congress. I was 
as intimate with him as with any other man of that Congress, 



500 PATRIOTIC READER. 

except perhaps my colleague Mr. Toombs. Of Mr. Lincoln's 
general character I need not speak. He was wai*m-hearted ; 
he was generous ; he was magnanimous ; he was most truly, as 
he afterwards said on a memorable occasion, "with malice 
toward none, with charity for all." He had a native genius 
far above his fellows. Every fountain of his heart was over- 
flowing with the " milk of human kindness." From my attach- 
ment to him, so much deeper was the pang in my own breast, 
as well as of millions, at the horrible manner of his " taking 
off." This was the climax of our troubles, and the spring from 
which came unnumbered woes. But of those events, no more, 
now! 

As to the great historic event which this picture represents, 
one thing should be duly noted. Let not History confuse events. 
It is this : that Emancipation was not the chief object of Mr. 
Lincoln in issuing the Proclamation. His chief object, the ideal 
to which his whole soul was devoted, was the preservation of 
the Union. Pregnant as it was with coming events, initiative 
as it was of ultimate emancipation, it still originated, in point 
of fact, more from what was deemed the necessities of war, than 
from any purely humanitarian view of the matter. 

Life is all a mist, and in the dark our fortunes meet us. This 
was evidently the case with Mr. Lincoln. He, in my opinion, was, 
like all the rest of us, an instrument in the hands of that Provi- 
dence above us, that " divinity which shapes our ends, rough- 
hew them as we will." I doubt very much whether Mr. Lin- 
coln, at the time, realized the great result. The Proclamation 
did not declare free all the colored people of the Southern States, 
but applied only to those parts of the country then in resistance 
to the Federal authorities. Mr. Lincoln's idea as embodied in 
his Proclamation of September 22, 1862, as well as that of Jan- 
uary 1, 1863, was consummated by the voluntary adoption, by 
the South, of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution 
of the United States. That is the charter of the colored man's 
freedom. Without that, the Proclamation had nothing but the 
continuance of the war to sustain it. Had the States, then in 
resistance, laid down their arms by the 1st of January, 1863, 
the Union would have been saved, but the condition of the 
slave, so called, would have been unchanged. 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 501 

Before the upturning of Southern society by the Beconstruc- 
tion Acts, the white people, there, came to the conclusion that 
their domestic institution, known as slavery, had better be abol- 
ished. It has been common to speak of the colored race as the 
wards of the nation. May I not say with appropriateness and 
due reverence, in the language of Georgia's greatest intellect, 
" They are, rather, the wards of the Almighty" ? Why, in the 
providence of God, their ancestors were permitted to be brought 
over here it is not for me to say ; but they have a location and 
habitation here, especially at the South ; and, though the changed 
condition of their status was the leading cause of the late ter- 
rible conflict between the States, I venture to aflirm that there 
is not one within the circle of my acquaintance, or in the whole 
Southern country, who would wish to see the old relation re- 
stored. 

This changed status creates new duties. Men of the North, 
and men of the South, of the East, and of the West, I care not 
of what party, I would, to-day, on this commemorative occasion, 
urge upon every one within the sphere of duty and humanity, 
whether in public or private life, to see to it that there be no 
violation of the divine trust. 

During the conflict of arms I frequently almost despaired of 
the liberties of our country, both North and South. The Union 
of these States, at first, I always thought was founded upon the 
assumption that it was the best interest of all to remain united, 
faithfully performing, each for itself, its own constitutional ob- 
ligations under the compact. When secession was resorted to 
as a remedy, I went with my State, holding it my duty to do so, 
but believing, all the time, that if successful, when the passions 
of the hour and of the day were over, the great law which pro- 
duced the Union at first, " mutual interest and reciprocal advan- 
tage," would reassert itself, and that at no distant day a new 
Union of some sort would again be formed. 

And now, after the severe chastisement of war, if the general 
sense of the whole country shall come back to the acknowledg- 
ment of the original assumption, that it is for the best interests 
of all the States to be so united, as I trust it will, the States 
being " separate as the billows, but one as the sea," this thorn 
in the body politic being now removed, I can perceive no 



502 PATRIOTIC READER. 

reason why, under such a restoration, the flag no longer waving 
over provinces, but States, we, as a whole, with peace, commerce, 
and honest friendship with all nations and entangling alliances 
with none, may not enter upon a new career, exciting increased 
wonder in the Old World, by grander achievements hereafter to 
be made, than any heretofore attained, by the peaceful and har- 
monious workings of our matchless system of American federal 
institutions of self-government. 

All this is possible, if the hearts of the people be right. It is 
my earnest wish to see it. Fondly would I gaze upon such a 
picture of the future. With what rapture may we not suppose 
the spirits of our fathers would hail its opening scenes, from 
their mansions above ! But if, instead of all this, sectional pas- 
sions shall continue to bear sway, if prejudice shall rule the hour, 
if a conflict of classes, of capital and labor, or of the races, shall 
arise, or the embers of the late war be kept a-glowing until with 
new fuel they shall flame up again, then, hereafter, by some bard 
it may be sung, — 

" The Star of Hope shone brightest in the "West, 
The hope of Liberty, the last, the best ; 
It, too, has set upon her darkened shore, 
And Hope and Freedom light up earth no more." 

Alexander Hamilton Stephens. 



BELLIGERENT NON-COMBATANTS. 

(From Address in connection with Memorial Day, at New York, 1878, de- 
ploring war as only " the last dread tribunal of kings and peoples," and edited 
by permission for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

It is related of General Scott that when asked, in 1861, the 
probable duration of the then Civil War, he answered, " The 
conflict of arms will endure for five years ; but will be followed 
by twenty years of angry strife, by the belligerent non-com- 
batants." The roar of arms only lasted four years, and let us 
hope that the belligerent non-combatants will give us a corre- 
spondingly shorter period of civil contention, than was then 
predicted. . . . 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 503 

The flippant manner in which some of our orators and news- 
paper critics make use of warlike terms, warrants me in warning 
them of the danger of playing with edged tools. . . . Men who 
have felt the sting of the bullet, who have heard the crash of 
the cannon's shot and exploding shell, or have witnessed its 
usual scenes of havoc and desolation, rarely appeal to war as 
a remedy for ordinary grievances. Wars are usually made by 
civilians, bold and defiant in the forum ; but when the storm 
comes, they go below and leave their innocent comrades to 
catch the "peltings of the pitiless storm." Of the half-million 
of brave fellows whose graves have this day been strewn with 
flowers, not one in a thousand had the remotest connection with 
the causes of the war which led to their untimely death. ... I 
now hope, and beg, that all good men, North and South, will 
unite in real earnest, to repair the mistakes and wrongs of the 
past; will persevere in the common effort to make this great 
land of ours to blossom as the garden of Eden. . . . 

I invoke all, within the hearing of my voice, to heed well the 
lessons of this " Decoration Day ;" to weave, each year, a fresh 
garland for the grave of some beloved comrade or favorite hero, 
and to rebuke any and all who talk of civil war, save as the 
" last dread tribunal of kings and peoples." 

William Tecttmseh Sherman. 



ALL UNDER THE SAME BANNER NOW, "ITS BROAD 
FOLDS UNRENT, AND ITS BRIGHT STARS UN- 
OBSCURED." 

(From Address delivered July 4, 1887, at Austin, Texas, before the sur- 
viving veterans of Hood's Texas Brigade, and edited by permission for the 
" Patriotic Header.") 

But few of you are here to-day. The great majority of your 
old comrades fill unknown graves, with naught to mark their 
silent resting-places ; but their names are embalmed in as many 
loving hearts as ever entwined around living, or lingered around 
the graves of deceased, patriots. And to-day, as our memory 
recalls face after face of this vast spectral army, of those who 



504 PATRIOTIC READER. 

have preceded us in the line of march to the silent shores, we 
shed the tear of affectionate remembrance, as echo gives praises 
to their memory and honor to their dust. Throughout the broad 
area of the world there never was a field more rich in facts 
which constitute the fibre of an earnest, active patriotism, than 
that found in the Southern struggle. And the lofty admiration 
in which your manhood, valor, and endurance, as well as the 
sublime resignation with which you accepted disappointment, 
after great hopes and greater efforts, are held all over the world, 
shows how much the world yet values true and brave men, who 
could shake off troubles as great as these were, and by heroic 
efforts, in a time of peace, make them, to an impoverished 
country, but as flaxen withs bound around a slumbering giant. 
What wonder the world has stood amazed at the persistent vi- 
tality of our people ? for, under your admirable conduct, every 
barrier to the flow of capital, or check to the development of 
our unbounded resources, was removed. 

We see here, to-day, a free and independent mingling of men 
from every section of our broad domain, all prejudices of the 
past forgotten; and while our State has been fortunate in 
acquiring thousands of those who fought against us, and who 
are an honor both to the States which gave them birth, and 
ours which they have made their home, it matters not whence 
they come ; they can exult in the reflection that our Country is 
the same, and they find floating here, the same banner that 
waved above them there, with its broad folds unrent, and its 
bright stars unobscured; and in its defence, if needs be, the 
swords of those old Confederates, so recently sheathed, would 
leap forth with equal alacrity with those of the North. 

No nobler emotion can fill the breast of an}*- man than that 
which prompts him to utter honest praise of an adversary. 
whose convictions and opinions are at war with his own ; and 
where is there a Confederate soldier in our land who has not felt 
a thrill of generous admiration and applause for the pre-eminent 
heroism of the gallant Federal admiral, who lashed himself to 
the mainmast, while the tattered sails and frayed cordage of his 
vessel were being shot away by piecemeal above his head, and 
slowly but surely picked his way through sunken reefs of tor- 
pedoes, whose destructive powers consigned many of his luck- 



THE OEDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 505 

less comrades to watery graves? The fame of such men as 
Farragut, Stanley, Hood, and Lee, and the hundreds of private 
soldiers who were the true heroes of the war, belongs to no time 
or section, but is the common property of mankind. They were 
all cast in the same grand mould of self-sacrificing patriotism, 
and I intend to teach my children to revere their names as long 
as the love of country is respected as a noble sentiment in the 
human breast. 

It is a remarkable fact that those who bore the brunt of the 
battle were the first to forget old animosities and consign to 
oblivion obsolete issues. They saw that nothing but sorrow 
and shame, and the loss of the respect of the world, was to be 
gained by perpetuating the bitterness of past strife ; and, im- 
pelled by a spirit of patriotism, they were willing, by all possi- 
ble methods, to create and give utterance to a public sentiment 
which would best conserve our common institutions and restore 
that fraternal concord in which the war of the Revolution left 
us, and the Federal Constitution found us. And I emphasize 
the declaration that, in most instances, those whose hatred has 
remained implacable, through all these years of peace, are men 
who held high carnival in the rear, and, after all danger had 
passed, emerged from their hiding-places, filled with ferocious 
zeal and courage, blind to every principle of wise statesmanship, 
to make amends for lack of deeds of valor by pressing to their 
lips the sweet cup of revenge, for whose intoxicating contents 
our country has already paid a price that would have purchased 
the goblet of the Egyptian queen. 

Lawrence Sullivan Boss. 



LET US REJOICE TOGETHER. 

(Extract from Address upon "Immortal Memories," furnished for the 
"Patriotic Reader.") 

More than twenty years have passed since the last great 
battle in our civil contest was fought. The mighty armies of the 
nation have long since folded their torn banners, stacked their 



506 PATRIOTIC READER. 

muskets, and doffed their uniforms. The bugles that of old 
sounded the charge, and the drums that beat to battle, are now 
silent. The blades that flashed, and the bayonets that gleamed 
above their surging columns, no longer catch the sunlight. 
Grass grows in the fields whereon they struggled, and the rustle 
of ripened grain is heard where, but a while ago, the ring of steel 
made music that set men's blood aflame. 

What was our war ? How should it be looked upon ? It was 
not the result of men's ambition, North or South. It was not a 
contest for territory. It could not have been prevented, although 
it might have been postponed, by the action of any political 
party. Our war was simply fighting out, upon a new field, and 
under more enlightened auspices, a contest that had been waged 
for centuries among the people from whose loins we sprung. It 
was the clash of two civilizations, so antagonistic in their con- 
ceptions, so antipodal in their means and methods of develop- 
ment, as to make impossible harmony of action, or peaceful 
growth side by side. The North and South were in direct op- 
position, as to the best methods of governing and perpetuating 
the heritage left them by their fathers. Their conceptions were 
so radically different, that peaceful measures could not adjust or 
reconcile them. One or the other must yield. 

War came ! The land that had known but peace echoed to 
the tread of armed men ! Up from the land of the orange and 
the myrtle came mighty hosts, harnessed for conflict, chanting 
songs of battle, eager for the fight, sweeping with as fiery courage 
and as dauntless bearing to the onset as of old the men from out 
whose loins they sprung charged Saracenic hosts, or closed in 
deadly grapple with the knightly sons of France. From the land 
of the fir and the pine, down from its mountains and out from 
its valleys, glittering with steel, and bright with countless ban- 
ners, steady and strong, the men of the North marched to the 
conflict. 

A hush as of death filled the land, as the mighty hosts con- 
fronted each other. An instant, — and the heavens seemed rent 
asunder, and the solid globe to reel. North and South had met 
in the shock of war ! Blood deluged the land ; the ear of pity 
deaf; the springs of love dried up; the throb of mighty guns; 
the gleam of myriad blades; the savage shouts of men grap- 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 507 

pling each other in relentless clutch ; Death, pale, pitiless, tire- 
less, thrusting his awful sickle into harvest-fields where the grain 
was human life ; bells from every steeple in the land tolling out 
their solemn notes of sorrow for the slain ; fathers, mothers, 
wives, and little ones smiting their palms in agony together, 
as they looked upon the features of their loved ones marbled 
in the eternal sleep ! 

For four long bitter years the mighty tide of war rolled 
through the land, engulfing in its crimson flood the best and 
bravest of the North and South, bearing their souls outwards, 
with resistless sweep, to that dread sea whose shores, to human 
eyes, are viewless, whose sombre waves are ever chanting solemn 
requiems for the dead ! In this wild storm of war the banners 
of the South went down. The bells of liberty through all the 
land rang out a joyous peal of welcome, and guns from fortress, 
field, and citadel thundered greeting to the hour that proclaimed 
America one and indivisible. From southern gulf to northern 
lakes, from northern lakes to Atlantic and Pacific coasts, we 
were one. The Mississippi flowed not along the borders of a 
dozen empires ; the blue waters of the lakes beat not upon the 
shores of rival governments ; the mountains of the land frowned 
not down upon hostile territories ; the ocean bore not upon its 
bosom the fleets of contending States ; but over all the land a 
single flag threw out its folds, symbol of victory, index of a re- 
united people. 

"We recall the glories and the triumphs of the Union, not for 
the purpose of humiliating the gallant souls that battled against 
us. In the providence of God, the struggle they made to rend 
us asunder has but strengthened the bonds of our union. Those 
who fought against us are now of us, and enjoy the countless 
blessings that have come from the triumph of the Union, and 
with us they should bow their heads and reverently acknowledge 
that above all the desires of men move the majestic laws of God, 
evolving, alike from victory or defeat of nations, substantial 
good for all His children. 

George Augustus Sheridan. 



508 PATRIOTIC READER. 



THE BLUE AND THE GRAY. 

(Written in 18G7, when the women of Columbus, Mississippi, strewed 
flowers impartially on the graves of Confederate and Federal soldiers, and 
by the courtesy of Ivison, Blakeman & Co., of New York, adopted from 
"Swinton's Fifth Header.") 

By the flow of the inland river, 

Whence the fleets of iron have fled. 
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, 
Asleep are the ranks of the dead. — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Under the one, the Blue ; 
Under the other, the Gray. 

These, in the robings of glory ; 

Those, in the gloom of defeat ; 
All, with the battle-blood gory. 
In the dusk of eternity meet, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Under the laurel, the Blue ; 
Under the willow, the Gray. 

From the silence of sorrowful hours, 

The desolate mourners go, 
Lovingly laden with flowers, 

Alike for the friend and the foe, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Under the roses, the Blue ; 
Under the lilies, the Gray. 

So, with an equal splendor, 

The morning sun-rays fall. 
With a touch impartially tender, 
On the blossoms blooming for all, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 
Waiting the judgment-day: 



THE ORDEAL OF CONFLICTING SYSTEMS PASSED. 509 

Broidered with gold, the Blue ; 
Mellowed with gold, the Gray. 

So, when the summer calleth, 
On forest and field of grain, 
With an equal murmur falleth 
The cooling drip of the rain, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Wet with the rain, the Blue ; 
Wet with the rain, the Gray. 

Sadly, but not with upbraiding, 
The generous deed was done ; 
In the storm of years that are fading- 
No braver battle was won, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Under the blossoms, the Blue ; 
Under the garlands, the Gray. 

No more shall the war-cry sever, 
Or the winding rivers be red ; 
They banish our anger forever, 

When they laurel the graves of our dead, — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the judgment-day : 
Love and tears, for the Blue ; 
Tears and love, for the Gray. 

Francis Miles Finch 



PART XIV. 

NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 



CENTENNIAL OP AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 

At a World's Fair, or Exposition, held at Philadelphia, during 
the year 1876, commencing May 10, and opened with prayer by 
Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
the following patriotic hymn, composed by the poet John Green- 
leaf Whittier, was sung : 

CENTENNIAL HYMN. 

Our fathers' Cod, from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
We meet to-day, united, free, 
And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done, 
And trust Thee for the opening one. 

Here, where of old, by Thy design, 
The fathers spake that word of Thine 
Whose echo is the glad refrain 
Of rended bolt and falling chain, — 
To grace our festal time, from all 
The zones of earth, our guests we call. 

Be with us while the New World greets 
The Old World, thronging all our streets, 
Unveiling all the triumphs won 
By art or toil, beneath the sun, 
And unto common good ordain 
This rivalship of hand and brain. 
510 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 511 

Thou, who hast here, in concord, furled 
The war-flags of a gathered world, — 
Beneath our "Western skies fulfil 
The Orient's mission of good will, 
And, freighted with Love's Golden Fleece, 
Send back the Argonauts of Peace. 

For Art and Labor, met in truce, 
For Beauty, made the bride of Use, 
We thank Thee ; while, withal, we crave 
The austere virtues, strong to save, — 
The Honor, proof to place or gold, 
The Manhood, never bought or sold. 

Oh, make Thou us, through centuries long, 
In Peace secure, in justice strong ; 
Around our gift of Freedom draw 
Tbe safeguards of Thy righteous law ; 
And, cast in some diviner mould, 
Let the new cycle shame the old. 

The Centennial Commissioners appointed by the United 
States, through Senator Joseph Eoswell Hawley, of Connecticut, 
President of the Commission, accepted the completed buildings 
from John Welsh, of Philadelphia, President of the Board of 
Finance, and the following cantata, written by the poet Sidney 
Lanier, of Macon, Georgia, was rendered : 

"THE MEDITATIONS OE COLUMBIA, 1876." 

From this hundred-terraced height, 
Sight more large, with nobler light, 
Ranges down yon towering years ; 
Humbler smiles and lordlier tears 
Shine and fall, shine and fall, 
While old voices rise and call 
Yonder, where the to-and-fro 
Weltering of my Long- Ago 
Moves about the moveless base, 
Far below my resting-place. 



512 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Mayflower, Mayflower, slowly hither flying, 
Trembling westward o'er yon balking sea, 
Hearts within, " Farewell, dear England," sighing, 
Winds without, " But dear in vain," replying, 
Gray-lipped waves, about thee, shouted, ciying, 
No ! It shall not be I 

Jamestown, out of thee ; 
Plymouth, thee ; thee, Albany. 
Winter cries, " Ye freeze ; away!" 
Fever cries, " Ye burn ; away 1" 
Hunger cries, " Ye starve; away!" 
Vengeance cries, " Your graves shall stay !" 

Then old shapes and masks of things, 
Framed like Faiths, or clothed like kings ; 
Ghosts of Goods, once fleshed and fair, 
Grown foul Bads in alien air ; 
War, and his most noisy lords, 
Tongued with lithe and poisoned swords, 
Error, Terror, Eage, and Crime, 
All, in a windy night of time, 
Cried to me, from land and sea, — 
No ! Thou shalt not be ! 

Hark! 

Huguenots whispering " yea," in the dark ! 
Puritans answering " yea," in the dark ! 
Yea, like an arrow, shot true to its mark, 
Darts through the tyrannous heart of Denial. 
Patience and Labor and solemn-souled Trial, 

Foiled, still beginning, 

Soiled, but not sinning, 
Toil through the stertorous death of the Night, 
Toil, when wild brother-wars new-dark the Light, 
Toil, and forgive, and kiss o'er, and replight. 

Now Praise to God's oft-granted grace, 
Now Praise to Man's undaunted face, 
Despite the land, despite the sea, 
I was, I am, and I shall be. 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 513 

How long, Good Angel, O how long ? 
Sing me, from heaven, a man's own song ! 

"Long as thine Art shall love true love, 
Long as thy Science truth shall know, 
Long as thy Eagle harms no Dove, 
Long as thy Law by law shall grow, 
Long as thy God is God above. 
Thy brother every man below, 
So long, dear Land of all my love, 
Thy name shall shine, thy fame shall glow!" 

Music, from this height of time, my Word unfold ; 
In thy large signals, all men's hearts Man's heart behold ; 
Mid-heaven, unroll thy chords, as friendly flags unfurled, 
And wave the world's best lover's welcome to the world. 

Upon the conclusion of the cantata, Ulysses Simpson Grant, 
the eighteenth President of the United States, with Dom Pedro 
II., Emperor of Brazil, then the guest of the United States, 
touched the keys that set in motion responsive machinery under 
fourteen acres of protecting roof. 

INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1876. 

Just at meridian, July 4, near Independence Hall, in the pres- 
ence of one hundred thousand spectators, General Hawley, and, 
in the absence of the President of the United States, the acting 
Vice-President, Thomas White Ferry, of Michigan, President of 
the United States Senate, welcomed the visitors from all lands to 
a participation in exercises in honor of the Centennial birthday of 
the Eepublic. Bishop William Bacon Stevens, of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, ecclesiastical successor of the first Chaplain 
of the Continental Congress, offered prayer; and a Hymn, com- 
posed by the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, was sung : 

WELCOME TO THE NATIONS. 

Bright on the banners of lily and rose, 
Lo, the last sun of our century sets ! 
33 



514 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Wreathe the bright cannon that scowled on our foes, 
All but her friendships the Nation forgets, 
All but her friends, and their welcome, forgets. 

These are around her : but where are her foes ? 
Lo, while the sun of her century sets, 

Peace, with her garlands of lily and rose ! 

Welcome! a shout like the war-trumpet's swell 

Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around ! 
Welcome ! it quivers from Liberty's bell ; 

Welcome ! the walls of her temple resound ! 

Hark ! the gray walls of her temple resound ! 
Fade the far voices o'er hill-side and dell ; 

Welcome ! still whisper the echoes around ! 
Welcome ! still trembles on Liberty's bell ! 

Thrones of the continents ! isles of the sea ! 

Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine ; 
Welcome once more to the land of the free, 

Shadowed alike by the palm and the pine ; 

Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine, 
" Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free ;" 

Over your children their branches entwine, 
Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea! 

Eichard Henry Lee, grandson of Eichard Henry Lee, of Eevo- 
lutionary history,* read the Declaration of American Indepen- 
dence, from the original manuscript ; followed by a " Greeting 
from Brazil," composed by A. Carlos Gomez, at the Emperor 
Dom Pedro's request, and by an ode, written by the poet Bayard 
Taylor. 

THIRD CANTO OF BAYARD TAYLOR'S ODE, " LIBERTY'S 
LATEST DAUGHTER." 

Foreseen in the vision of sages, 

Foretold when martyrs bled, 
She was born of the longing of ages, 

By the truth of the noble dead, 



* See p. 124. 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 515 

And the faith of the living, fed ! 
No blood in her lightest veins 
Frets at remembered chains, 
Nor shame of bondage has boAved her head. 

In her form and features, still, 

The unblenching Puritan will, 
Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace, 

The Quaker truth and sweetness, 
And the strength of the danger-girdled race 

Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. 
From the homes of all, where her being began, 
She took what she gave to man : 
Justice that knew no station, 

Belief as soul decreed, 
Free air for aspiration, 

Free force for independent deed. 
She takes, but to give again, 
As the sea returns the rivers in rain ; 
And gathers the chosen of her seed 
From the hunted of every crown and creed. 
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Ehine ; 
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine ; 
Her France pursues some dream divine ; 
Her Norway keeps his mountain-pine ; 
Her Italy waits by the western brine ; 
And, broad-based, under all 

Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, 

As rich in fortitude 
As e'er went world-ward from the island wall. 

Fused in her candid light, 

To one strong race all races here unite ; 
Tongues melt in hers ; hereditary foemen 

Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan ; 
'Twas glory, once, to be a Eoman ; 
She makes it glory, now, to be a man. 

The following words, written by Dexter Smith, of Massachu- 
setts, were then sung, the music being composed by Sir Julius 
Benedict, of England : 



516 PATRIOTIC READER. 

OUR NATIONAL BANNER. 

O'er the high and o'er the lowly- 
Floats that banner bright and holy 

In the rays of Freedom's sun, 
In the nation's heart embedded, 
O'er our Union newly wedded, 

One in all, and all in one. 

Let that banner wave forever, 
May its lustrous stars fade never, 

Till the stars shall pale on high ; 
While there's right the wrong defeating, 
While there's hope in true hearts beating, 

Truth and freedom shall not die. 

As it floated long before us, 
Be it ever floating o'er us. 

O'er our land from shore to shore : 
There are freemen yet to wave it, 
Millions who would die to save it, 

Wave it, save it, evermore. 

An oration was also delivered by William Maxwell Evarts, of 
New York. 



THE CENTENNIAL OP CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERN- 
MENT. 

The one-hundredth anniversary of the framing and promul- 
gation of the Constitution of the United States was observed 
at Philadelphia, September 17, 1887, with becoming grandeur. 
Governors of many States, attended by the uniformed militia 
of their States, — in all, a larger army than served at any one 
time under the direct command of Washington during the war 
for American independence, — contributed to the dignity of the 
occasion. A great choir of school-children sang an opening 
hymn ; prayer was offered by Bishop Henry Codman Potter, of 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 517 

the Protestant Episcopal Church, and John Adams Kasson, of 
Iowa, President of the Constitutional Commission, delivered an 
opening address. 

EXTRACT FROM CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 

Our chief glory springs neither from the material wealth our 
progress has developed, nor from the victories our associated 
arms have achieved. It arises from the general welfare of our 
people, their contentment with their institutions, their enlighten- 
ment, and their general advancement in the virtues of Christian 
civilization. The scene and ceremonies of this day indicate the 
moral and intellectual harvest of which our Constitution planted 
the seeds. Public schools, universal and free, here chant their 
praises for the endowment of liberal popular instruction. The 
representatives of the higher education of universities and col- 
leges here attest their gratitude for the free pursuit of knowl- 
edge and the unrestricted development of science. Here are 
found distinguished representatives of all the churches and 
forms of divine worship, unsupported and uncontrolled by the 
government, and yet, more prosperous and happy therefor. 
They offer thanks for the guaranteed blessings of a free church 
in a free state. The men are also here who represent that 
private wealth which has endowed hospitals, schools, universi- 
ties, churches, and other charities, to a degree never before, or 
elsewhere, witnessed in this round world. Here, too, Labor, the 
productive sister of Capital, acknowledges allegiance to that 
great document which makes all men alike free and equal 
before the law. 

Most heartily do we here render thanks to the Almighty, that 
"Washington and his associated patriots did not despair. May 
their pacified spirits look down from their lofty sphere and per- 
ceive in this vast assemblage the universal gratitude of a great 
nation ! To the companionship of this centennial multitude of 
American patriots we dare summon even the great shade of 
Washington, chief among chieftains; of Hamilton, his trusted 
friend, incomparable in statesmanship ; of Madison and Jay, 
great in the power of reason ; of Franklin, mighty in wisdom 
and moderation of temper; of the Adamses, indomitable in res- 
olution ; and of other towering forms whom we imagine this 



518 PATRIOTIC RKADER. 

day to be hovering over us. Let their names, crowned with 
the halo of unfading honor, descend with the ages, and their 
memory never cease from the hearts of our posterity ! May the 
dawn of the second centennial year be celebrated with increased 
fervor, and our Union gain strength as the centuries roll on ! 
Forever live the Constitution and the Union ! 

Stephen Grover Cleveland, the twenty-second President of the 
United States, followed with an Address. 

EXTKACT EROM PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S ADDRESS. 

Every American citizen should, on this centennial day, rejoice 
in his citizenship. He should rejoice, because the work of 
framing our Constitution was completed one hundred years ago, 
and, when completed, established a free government. He should 
rejoice, because this Constitution and this government have sur- 
vived, with so many blessings, and have so fully demonstrated 
the strength and value of popular rule. He should rejoice in 
the wondrous growth and achievements of the past, and in the 
glorious promise through centuries yet to come. 

We should indeed fail to be duly thankful for all that was 
done for us one hundred years ago, unless we realize the difficul- 
ties then in hand, and the dangers avoided, in the difficult task 
of forming a " more perfect Union" between disjointed and in- 
harmonious States, with interests and opinions radically diverse, 
and stubbornly maintained. 

In the face of all discouragements, the fathers of the Eepublic 
labored on, for four long, weaiy months, in alternate hope and 
fear, but always with rugged resolve ; never faltering, in a sturdy 
endeavor, sanctified by a prophetic sense of the value to pos- 
terity of their success, and always with unflinching faith in the 
principles which made the true foundation of a government by 
the people. 

At last their work was done ! It is related that back of the 
chair occupied by Washington, as the President of the Conven- 
tion, a sun was painted, and that, as the delegates were signing 
the completed Constitution, one of them said, "I have often, and 
often, in the course of the session, and in the solicitude of my 
hopes and fears as to the issue, looked at the design, behind the 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 519 

President, without being able to tell whether it was a rising or a 
setting sun ; but now I know, at length, that it is a rising, and 
not a setting, sun." 

We stand, to-day, on the spot where that rising sun emerged 
from political night and darkness ; and in its own bright me- 
ridian we mark its glorious way. Clouds have sometimes ob- 
scured its rays, and dreadful storms have made us fear ; but God 
has held it in its course, and, through its life-giving warmth, has 
performed His latest miracle, in the creation of this wondrous 
land and people. As we look down the past century, to the 
origin of our Constitution, as we contemplate its trials and its 
triumphs, as we realize how completely the principles upon 
which it is based have met every national peril, how devoutly 
should we confess, with Franklin, " Cod governs in the affairs 
of men," and how solemn should be the reflection, that to our 
hands is committed this ark of the people's covenant, and that 
ours is the duty to shield it from impious hands ! We received 
it, sealed with the tests of a century ! It has been found suffi- 
cient in the past ; and in all the future years it will be found 
sufficient, if the American people are true to their sacred trust. 

Another centennial day will come, and millions, yet unborn, 
will inquire concerning our stewardship and the safety of their 
Constitution. God grant that they may find it unimpaired ; and, 
as we rejoice in the patriotism and devotion of those who lived 
one hundred years ago, so may others, who follow us, rejoice in 
our fidelity, and in our jealous love for constitutional liberty. 

An oration by Justice Samuel Freeman Miller, of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, followed. 

EXTEACT FROM JUSTICE MILLER'S ORATION. 

Mr. President and Fellow-Countrymen, — 

The people of the United States, for ten or twelve years past, 
have commemorated certain days of those different years as the 
centennial anniversaries of important events in their history. 
These gatherings of the people have been in the localities where 
the historic events occurred. May it be long before the people 
of the United States shall cease to take a deep interest in the 
Fourth of July, as the birthday of our national life, or the event 



520 PATRIOTIC READER. 

which then occurred shall be subordinated to any other of our 
national history ! 

We are met here to commemorate another event in our prog- 
ress, inferior to none in importance in our own history, or in 
the history of the world. It is the formation of the Consti- 
tution of the United States, which, on this day one hundred 
years ago, was adopted by the convention which represented 
the people of the United States, and which was then signed by 
the delegates who framed it, and published, as the final result of 
their arduous labors, of their most careful and deliberate con- 
sideration, and of a love of country as unmixed with selfishness 
as human nature is capable of. 

It is the first successful attempt, in the history of the world, 
to lay the deep and broad foundations of a government for mil- 
lions of people and an unlimited territory, in a single written 
instrument, framed and adopted in one great national effort. 

Other nations speak of their constitutions, which are the 
growth of centuries of government, and the maxims of ex- 
perience, and the traditions of ages. Many of them deserve 
the veneration which they receive. But a constitution in the 
American sense of the term, as accepted in all the States of 
North and South America, means an instrument, in writing, de- 
fining the powers of government, and distributing those powers 
among different bodies of magistrates for their more judicious 
exercise. The Constitution of the United States not only did 
this as regards a national government, but it established a fed- 
eration of many States by the same instrument, in which the 
usual fatal defects in such unions have been corrected, with such 
felicity, that during the hundred years of its existence the Union 
of the States has grown stronger, and has received within that 
Union other States, exceeding in number those of the original 
federation. 

In the principles of our Constitution, by which the autonomy 
and domestic government of each State are preserved, while 
the supremacy of the General Government at once forbids wars 
between the States and enables it to enforce peace among them, 
we may discern the elements of political forces sufficient for the 
rescue of European civilization from this great disorder. 

Mr. Bancroft, the eminent historian, says, "As the British 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 521 

Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded 
from progressive history, so the American Constitution is the 
most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time, by the 
brain and purpose of man." And while I heartily endorse this, 
I should fail of a most important duty if I did not say, on this 
important occasion, that no amount of wisdom in a Constitution 
can produce wise government, unless there be a wise response 
in the spirit of the people. 

The Anglo-Saxon race, from whom we inherit so much that is 
valuable in our character as well as our institutions, has been re- 
markable in all its history for a love of law and order. I but 
repeat the language of the Supreme Court of the United States 
when I say that " in this country the law is supreme." No man 
is so high as to be above law. No officer of the government 
may disregard it with impunity. To this inborn and native 
regard for law, as a governing power, we are largely indebted 
for the wonderful success and prosperity of our people, for the 
security of our rights ; and when the highest law, to which we 
pay this homage, is the Constitution of the United States, the 
history of the world has furnished no such wonder of a pros- 
perous, happy civil government. 

Let me urge upon you, my fellow-countrymen, and especially 
upon the rising generation of them, to examine with careful 
scrutiny all new theories of government and social life, and if 
they do not rest upon a foundation of veneration and respect 
for law, as the bond of social existence, let them distrust them, 
as inimical to human happiness. 

And now let me close with what Chancellor Kent said, fifty 
years ago : " The government of the United States was created by 
the free voice and joint will of the people of America for their 
common defence and general welfare. Its powers apply only to 
those interests which relate to this country in its national ca- 
pacity, and which depend, for their stability and protection, on 
the consolidation of the Union. It is clothed with the principal 
attributes of sovereignty, and it is justly deemed the guardian 
of our best rights, the source of our highest civil and political 
duties, and the sure means of our national greatness." 

At the conclusion of Justice Miller's address, the following 



522 PATRIOTIC READER. 

new words for the tune " Hail Columbia," composed by Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, were sung by a chorus of two thousand voices : 

THE NEW "HAIL COLUMBIA." 

Look our ransomed shores around, 
Peace and safety we have found ! 

Welcome, friends, who once were foes, 

Welcome, friends, who once were foes, 
To all the conquering years have gained, 
A nation's rights, a race unchained ! 

Children of the day new-born, 

Mindful of its glorious morn, 

Let the pledge our fathers signed 

Heart to heart forever bind ! 
Chorus. 

Graven deep with edge of steel, 
Crowned with Yictory's crimson seal, 

All the world their names shall read, 

All the world their names shall read, 
Enrolled with his hosts that led, 
Whose blood for us, for all, was shed. 

Pay our sires their children's debt, 

Love and honor, nor forget, 

Only Union's golden key 

Guards the Ark of Liberty. 
Chorus. 

Hail, Columbia, strong and free, 
Firm enthroned from sea to sea ! 

Thy march triumphant still pursue, 

Thy march triumphant still pursue, 
With peaceful stride from zone Jo zone, 
And make the Western land thine own ! 

Blest in the Union's holy ties, 

Let our grateful song arise, 

Every voice its tribute lend, — 

In the loving chorus blend ! 
Chorus. 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 523 

A new National Hymn, written by Francis Marion Crawford, 
was then recited by James Edward Murdoch, and the Marine 
Band of Washington led singers and the people in the chorus. 

CRAWFORD'S NATIONAL HYMN. 

Hail, Freedom ! thy bright crest 
And gleaming shield, thrice blest, 

Mirror the glories of a world thine own. 
Hail, heaven-born Peace ! our sight, 
Led by thy gentle light, 

Shows us the paths with deathless flowers strewn. 
Peace, daughter of a strife sublime, 
Abide with us till strife be lost in endless time. 
Chorus. — Thy sun is risen, and shall not set, 
Upon thy day divine; 
Ages, of unborn ages, yet, 
America, are thine. 

Her one hand seals with gold 
The portals of night's fold, 

Her other, the broad gates of dawn unbars ; 
O'er silent wastes of snows, 
Crowning her lofty brows, 

Gleams high her diadem of northern stars ; 
While, clothed in garlands of warm flowers, 
Bound Freedom's feet the South her wealth of beauty 
showers. 

Sweet is the toil of peace, 
Sweet is the year's inci'ease, 

To loyal men who live by Freedom's laws ; 
And in war's fierce alarms 
God gives stout hearts and arms 

To freemen sworn to save a rightful cause. 
Fear none, trust God, maintain the right, 
And triumph in unbroken Union's might. 

Welded in war's fierce flame, 
Forced on the hearth of fame, 



524 PATRIOTIC READER. 

The sacred Constitution was ordained ; 
Tried in the fire of time, 
Tempered in woes sublime, 

An age was passed and left it yet unstained. 
God grant its glories still may shine, 
"While ages fade, forgotten, in time's slow decline I 

Honor the few who shared 
Freedom's first fight, and dared 

To face war's desperate tide at the full flood ; 
Who fell on hard-won ground, 
And into Freedom's wound 

Poured the sweet balsam of their brave hearts' blood. 
They fell ; but o'er that glorious grave 
Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save. 

In radiance heavenly fair, 
Floats on the peaceful air 

That flag that never stooped from victory's pride ; 
Those stars that softly gleam, 
Those stripes that o'er us stream, 

In war's grand agony were sanctified ; 
A holy standard, pure and free, 
To light the home of peace, or blaze in victory. 

Father, whose mighty power 
Shields us through life's short hour, 

To Thee we pray, — Bless us and keep us free ; 
All that is past forgive ; 
Teach us, henceforth, to live, 

That through our country we may honor Thee ; 
And when this mortal life shall cease, 
Take thou, at last, our souls to Thine eternal peace. 

Cardinal James Gibbons, of the Eoman Catholic Church, of- 
fered the following concluding prayer, invoking upon America 
the blessing of Almighty God : 

We pray Thee, O God of might, wisdom, and justice, through 
whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 525 

judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and 
fortitude the President of these United States, that his adminis- 
tration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently 
useful to Thy people over whom he presides, by encouraging 
due respect for virtue and religion, by a faithful execution 
of the laws, in justice and mercy, and by restraining vice and 
immorality. 

Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations 
of Congress, and shine forth in all their proceedings and laws 
framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to 
the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, 
the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge, and 
may perpetuate to us the blessings of equal liberty. 

"We pray Thee for all judges, magistrates, and other officers 
who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may 
be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties 
of their respective stations with honesty and ability. 

We pray Thee, especially, for the Judges of our Supreme 
Court, that they may interpret the laws with even-handed justice. 
May they ever be the faithful guardians of the temple of the 
Constitution, whose construction and solemn dedication to our 
country's liberties we commemorate to-day! May they stand as 
watchful and incorruptible sentinels at the portals of this temple, 
shielding it from profanation and hostile invasion ! 

May this glorious Charter of our civil rights be deeply im- 
printed on the hearts and memories of our people ! May it foster 
in them a spirit of patriotism ! May it weld together and as- 
similate in national brotherhood the diverse races that come 
to seek a home among us ! May the reverence paid to it con- 
duce to the promotion of social stability and order, and may 
it hold the segis of its protection over us, and generations yet 
unborn, so that the temporal blessings which we enjoy may be 
perpetuated ! 

Grant, O Lord, that our Eepublic, unexampled in mate- 
rial prosperity and growth of population, may be also, under 
Thy overruling providence, a model to all nations, in uphold- 
ing liberty without license, and in wielding authority without 
despotism! 

Finally, we recommend to Thy unbounded mercy all our 



526 PATRIOTIC READER. 

brethren and fellow-citizens throughout the United States, that 
they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the ob- 
servance of Thy most holy law, that they may be preserved in 
union, and in that peace which the world cannot give, and, after 
enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which 
are eternal. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy 
kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread ; and forgive us our trespasses, 
as we forgive them who trespass against us. And lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 

May the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, descend upon our beloved country and upon all her people, 
and abide with them forever ! Amen. 

At the conclusion of the prayer the people sang " The Star- 
Spangled Banner," and Eev. Jeremiah Witherspoon, of the 
Cumberland Presbyterian Church, from Nashville, Tennessee, a 
descendant of John "Witherspoon, one of the signers of the 
Declaration of American Independence, pronounced the bene- 
diction. 



CENTENNIAL OP THE ORDINANCE OP 1787. 

The late Israel Ward Andrews, for many years President of 
Marietta College, in a Centennial Historical Address, delivered 
July 4, 1876, and in an Address delivered before the American 
National Educational Association, at Chicago, July 13, 1887, the 
Centennial Anniversary of the passage of the Ordinance of 1787, 
states that this " alone, of all the Acts of the American Congress, 
is known simply by the year of its passage, and, as such, is as 
significant to most Americans as the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, or the Constitution of the United States." 

In an Address delivered by Edward Everett, at Yellow Springs, 
Ohio, June 29, 1828, he describes the " long, ark-like-looking, and 
black-covered wagon, once seen travelling from Salem, Massa- 
chusetts, along the roads and through the villages of Essex and 
Middlesex Counties, " westward bound," and pays tribute to 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 527 

Nathan Dane, who framed the Ordinance, and to Manasseh Cut- 
ler and General Eufus Putnam, who originated and carried into 
effect the first settlement of the territory overshadowed by that 
Ordinance. 

On the 5th, 6th, and 7th days of April, 1888, there occurred 
a formal recognition of that settlement. Addresses were deliv- 
ered by many, including the Governor of Ohio, Joseph Benson 
Poraker; Ex-Governor and Ex-President Eutherford Burchard 
Hayes, the nineteenth President of the United States ; William 
Henry Smith ; Edward Everett Hale ; Francis Charles Sessions, 
President of the Ohio Historical Society ; George Bailey Loring, 
John Eandolph Tucker, Senator George Erisbie Hoar, and others. 

THE SUPEEMACY OF ORGANIC LAW.— THE CONSTITUTION 
THE BOND OF UNION. 

(Extract from close of Address delivered at Marietta, Ohio, by John Ran- 
dolph Tucker, April 7, 1888.) 

What we need most in this great Eepublic of republics is 
to study with earnest diligence the principles of our free in- 
stitutions ; to hold him an enemy to the country who derides 
fidelity to the Constitution and trifles with his solemn obliga- 
tion to uphold it ; who would use the power of the government 
to promote personal or party ends ; who stirs up the bitterness 
of buried strifes and engenders sectional or class conflicts among 
the people of the Union ; and who does not hold it to be his 
best and noblest civil duty to uphold and defend the Constitu- 
tion, in all its integrity, against all the temptations to its viola- 
tion by the corrupting influences which surround us. 

The time has come, in this period when Centennial anniversa- 
ries summon us to look at the genesis of our beginning, as a 
people, to examine and study the general principles, in the devel- 
opment of which a century has passed, and to ask wherein we 
have departed from the law of our organic life. Ours is not 
a Constitution of growth and evolution, but a written compact, 
unchangeable, except by the mode it ordains. 

It is to this duty that I venture to call the sons of New Eng- 
land and of Virginia, and of all the States here and elsewhere, 
now and always. Let the descendants of the sturdy men who, 



528 PATRIOTIC READER. 

here and elsewhere, laid this foundation-stone — the " elect, tried, 
and precious corner-stone" — for free institutions, bring us back to 
a higher and more healthful atmosphere of thought and feeling. 
Let us make this Union so strong, under the faithful observation 
of the Constitution, so strong in the affections and devotion of 
the people, that not only none should be able to destroy it, but 
that none would do so if they could. Believe me, the bond of 
reverential love is stronger than that of force. The South, to- 
day, though she could not destroy the Union when she would, 
would not now, if she could. The States cannot destroy the 
Union. Let not the Union destroy the States. 

THE DECLARATION AND THE ORDINANCE. 

"These Acts devote the natiou to Equality, Education, Eeligion, and Liberty." 
(Extract from close of Address delivered at Marietta, Ohio, by George 
Frisbie Hoar, April 7, 1888.) 

We are not here to celebrate an accident. What occurred 
here was premeditated, designed, foreseen. If there be in the 
universe a Power which ordains the course of history, we can- 
not fail to see in the settlement of Ohio an occasion when the 
human will was working in harmony with its own. The events 
move onward to a dramatic completeness. Eufus Putnam lived 
to see the little colony, for whose protection against the savage 
he had built what he described as "the strongest fortification in 
the United States," grow to nearly a million of people, and be- 
come one of the most powerful States of the Confederacy. The 
men who came here had earned the right to the enjoyment of 
liberty and peace, and they enjoyed the liberty and peace they 
had earned. The men who had helped win the war of the Kovo- 
lution did not leave the churches and schools of New England 
to tread over again the thorny path from barbarism to civiliza- 
tion, or from despotism to self-government. When the appointed 
time had come, and 

" God uncovered tbe land 

That He hid, of old time, in the West, 
As the sculptor uncovers the statue 
"When he has wrought his best," — 

then, and not till then, the man, also, was at hand. 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 529 

It is one of the most fortunate circumstances of our history 
that the vote in the Continental Congress was substantially 
unanimous. Without the accompaniment of the Ordinance, the 
Constitution of the United States itself would have lost half its 
value. It was fitting that the whole country should share in 
the honor of that act which, in a later generation, was to deter- 
mine the fate of the whole country. 

We would not forget, to-day, the brave men and noble women 
who represented Connecticut, and Ehode Island, and New Hamp- 
shire, in the band of pioneers. Among them were Parsons, and 
Meigs, and Vai*num, and Greene, and Devol, and True, and Bar- 
ker, and the Gihnans. Connecticut made, a little later, her own 
special contribution to the settlement of Ohio. Both Virginia 
and Massachusetts have the right to claim, and to receive, a 
peculiar share of the honor which belongs to this occasion. 
They may well clasp each other's hands anew, as they survey 
the glory of their work. These two States, the two oldest of 
the sisterhood, — the State which framed the first written Con- 
stitution, and the State whose founders framed the compact on 
the Mayflower; the State which produced Washington, and the 
State which summoned him to his high command; the State 
whose son drafted the Declaration of Independence, and the 
State which furnished its leading advocate on the floor; the 
mother of John Marshall, and the mother of the President who 
appointed him ; the State which gave the General, and the State 
which furnished the largest number of soldiers to the Revolu- 
tion ; the State which gave the territory of the North- West, and 
the State which gave its first settlers, — may well delight to re- 
member that they share between them the honor of the author 
ship of the Ordinance of 1787. When the reunited country 
shall erect its monument at Marietta, let it bear on one side the 
names of the founders of Ohio, on the other side the names 
of Jefferson and Eichard Henry Lee, and Carrington and Gray- 
son, side by side with those of Nathan Dane and Eufus King 
and Manasseh Cutler, beneath the supreme name of Wash- 
ington. Representatives of Virginia and Massachusetts, them- 
selves, in some sense representatives of the two sections of the 
country which so lately stood against each other in arms, they 
will bear witness that the estrangements of four years have 
34 



530 PATRIOTIC READER. 

not obliterated the common and tender memories of two cen- 
turies. 

Forever honored be Marietta, as another Plymouth ! The Or- 
dinance belongs with the Declaration of Independence, and the 
Constitution. It is one of the three title-deeds of American con- 
stitutional liberty. As the American youth, for uncounted cen- 
turies, shall visit the capital of his country, — strongest, richest, 
freest, happiest of the nations of the earth, — from the stormy 
coast of New England, from the luxurious regions of the Gulf, 
from the prairie and the plain, from the Golden Gate, from far 
Alaska, — he will admire the evidences of its grandeur and the 
monuments of its historic glory. He will find there, rich libra- 
ries and vast museums, which show the product of that match- 
less inventive genius of America, which has multiplied a thou- 
sand-fold the wealth and comfort of human life. He will see 
the simple and modest portal through which the great line of 
the Eepublic's chief magistrates have passed, at the call of their 
country, to assume an honor surpassing that of emperors and 
kings, and through which they have returned, in obedience to 
her laws, to take their place again as equals in the ranks of their 
fellow-citizens. He will stand by the matchless obelisk which, 
loftiest of human structures, is itself but the imperfect type of 
the loftiest of human characters. He will gaze upon the marble 
splendors of the Capitol, in whose chambers are enacted the 
statutes under which the people of a continent dwell together in 
peace, and the judgments are rendered which keep the forces 
of States and nation, alike, within their appointed bounds. He 
will look upon the records of great wars and the statues of great 
commanders. But, if he know his country's history, and con- 
sider wisely the sources of her glory, there is nothing in all these 
which will so stir his heart as two fading and time-soiled papers 
whose characters were traced by the hand of the fathers one 
hundred years ago. 

They are the original records of the Acts which devoted this 
nation, forever, to Equality, to Education, to Eeligion, and to 
Liberty. 

One is the Declaration of Independence, the other is the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. 



NATIONAL CENTENNIAL OBSERVANCES. 531 

« GOD SAVE THE STATE." 

(Words by Charles Timothy Brooks.) 

God bless our native land ! 
Firm may she ever stand, 

Through storm and night ! 
When the wild tempests rave, 
Euler of wind and wave, 
Do Thou our country save 

By Thy great might. 

For her our prayer shall rise 
To God above the skies ; 

On Him we wait : 
Thou who art ever nigh, 
Guarding with watchful eye, 
To Thee aloud we cry, 

God save the State. 



PART XV. 

PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

At no previous time in American history has there been a 
more pressing demand for the inculcation of patriotic sentiment 
through the schools, than (luring these closing years of the nine- 
teenth century. The increasing influx of an illiterate, unsym- 
pathetic, foreign element deepens that sentiment. During the 
years 1887 and 1888, nearly one hundred and fifty colleges pro- 
vided for special instruction in Civics ; thereby passing beyond 
the technical sphere of Political Economy, to teach the princi- 
ples of good government and those branches of study which 
instil pride of country, and prepare youth for responsible and 
honorable citizenship.* 

Hon. Andrew S. Draper, Superintendent of Public Instruction 
for the State of New York, in his Official Report for 1887, says, — 

" Let me say a word for a little more patriotism in the schools. We have 
little in our every-day life to arouse patriotic ardor. We have no frequent 

or groat exhibitions of power ; no army to stand in awe of; no royalty to 
Worship ; no emblems or ribbons to dazzle the eye; and but few national airs. 
We have elections so frequently, and then say such terribly hard things of 
each other and about the management of government, that I imagine the 
children wonder what kind of a country this is, that they have been burn 
into. There is no such inculcation oi' patriotism anion- our children as 
among the children of some other lands. If I had my way. 1 would hang 
the flag in every school-room, and I would spend an occasional hour in sing- 
ing our best patriotic songs, in declaiming the masterpieces o\' our national 
oratory, and in rehearsing the proud story of our national life. I would do 
something to inspire a just pride in the thrift and development <4' the first 
and greatest State of the Union. I would attempt, to impress upon all, the 

* See note at end of this Tart. 
532 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 533 

supreme value of their inheritance, and the sacred duty of transmitting it 
untarnished and unimpaired, but rather broadened and strengthened, to the 
millions who will follow after." 

Hon. M. A. No well, Superintendent of Public Instruction for 
Maryland, in his I oaugural Address before the National Educa- 
tional Association, at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1877, comment- 
ing upon the strikes and riots of that year, used the following 
language : 

"That free institutions, resting on the basis of universal suffrage, are 
accompanied and stimulated by universal intelligence, is a truism which I 
should not be justified in repeating before this audience, were it not that the 
events of the last few weeks [the July riots] have converted the dormant 
truism into a pregnant truth. The commission to the Roman Dictator, ' See 
to it, that the Commonwealth receives no injury,' is now the order of the 
day to every American citizen, in his own place and sphere of action. To 
us, as educators, comes with special force the order, ' See to it, that, so far as 
your office is concerned, the Republic receives no injury.-' The question 
before us at this crisis is, ' Are our public schools doing all that we have a 
right to demand of them to prepare the young people who have to live by the 
labor of their hands, to become intelligent, moral, and industrious citizens ?' " 

State Superintendents Cooper, of Texas; Austin, of Florida; 
Buchanan, of Virginia; Cornell, of Colorado; Edwards, of Illi- 
nois; Kiehle, of Minnesota; Higbee, of Pennsylvania; Tappan, 
of Ohio ; Stockwell, of Ehodo Island ; Dickinson, of Massachu- 
setts; Patterson, of New Hampshire; Dart, of Vermont, and 
many other educators in charge of State systems, of colleges, 
normal schools, city schools, high schools, and grammar-schools, 
have actively entered upon the plan of making the inculcation 
of patriotism a special function of their work, it will soon 
be, if it is not already, a specialty, of universal and cardinal 
importance. 

In 1887, the National Congress, almost without dissent, at the 
earnest importunity of an organized body of Christian women, 
known as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, enacted 
a law having special reference to the teaching of temperance 
physiology in schools under government control. A systematic 
"reading-method," known as the Chautauqua, whereby families, 
and youth beyond school age, could have uniform lines of study 
promotive of intelligence in life work, has added its force to the 



534 PATRIOTIC READER. 

movement in behalf of a more thorough development of the 
patriotic sentiment among the American people. 

The words of Kobert C. McGinn, of Maryland, to Mr. Eandall's 
song, serve to introduce utterances which inspire patriotic sen- 
timent in the training of youth. 

MY MARYLAND. 

The public schools are scattered o'er, 

My Maryland, 
Diffusing wide their treasured lore, — 

My Maryland. 
Oh, may they rise, to fall no more, 
And be all other schools before, 
In wisdom's never-failing store, 

My Maryland ! 

Hark to thy children's young appeal, 

My Maryland, 
Our mother State, to thee we kneel, 

My Maryland. 
For us, our mother, ever feel, 
Thy sacred love for us reveal, 
By yielding to our young appeal, 

My Maryland. 

Thou wilt not let thine offspring die, 

My Maryland ; 
Our souls for knowledge loudly cry, 

My Maryland. 
Oh, hie thee, mother, quickly hie, 
To thee, for help, to thee we fly, 
Nor let us still neglected lie, 

My Maryland. 

We hear thee in the distance call, 

My Maryland, 
To statesmen, lawyers, patriots, all, 

M}'- Maryland, 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 535 

Save ye my children from the gall 
Of superstition's bitter thrall, 
By educating one and all, 

My Maryland. 

God bless our State, for what is done, 

My Maryland ! 
God bless her people, every one, 

My Maryland ! 
May Freedom's bright and cheering sun, 
Till moon and stars and earth are gone, 
Shine brightly down on every one, 

My Maryland ! 

Kobert Cooper McGinn. 



FREE SCHOOLS INSPIRE LOYALTY TO COUNTRY. 

(From the last interview of General Horry with General Marion in 1795.) 

Israel of old, you know, was destroyed for lack of knowl- 
edge ; and all nations, all individuals, have come to naught from 
the same cause. Happiness signifies nothing, if it be not known 
and properly valued. Satan, we are told, was once an angel of 
light ; but for want of considering his glorious state, he rebelled, 
and lost all. And so it is, most exactly, with nations. We 
fought for self-government; and God hath pleased to give us 
one, better calculated, perhaps, to protect our rights, to foster 
our virtues, to call forth our energies, and to advance our con- 
dition nearer to perfection and happiness, than any government 
that was ever framed under the sun. But what signifies even 
this government, divine as it is, if it be not known and prized 
as it deserves ? This is best done by free schools. 

Men will always fight for their government according to their 
sense of its value. To value it aright, they must understand it. 
This they cannot do, without education. And as a large portion 
of the citizens are poor, and can never attain that inestimable 
blessing without the aid of government, it is plainly the first 
duty of government to bestow it freely upon them. The more 
perfect the government, the greater the duty to make it well 



536 PATRIOTIC READER. 

known. Selfish and oppressive governments, indeed, as Christ 
observes, must " hate the light, and fear to come to it, because 
their deeds are evil." But a fair and cheap government, like 
our Kepublic, " longs for the light, and rejoices to come to the 
light, that it may be manifested to be from G-od," and well worth 
all the vigilance and valor that an enlightened nation can rally 
for its defence. 

God knows, a good government can hardly ever be half anx- 
ious enough to give its citizens a thorough knowledge of its own 
excellencies. For as some of the most valuable truths, for lack 
of careful promulgation, have been lost, so the best government 
on earth, if not duly known and prized, may be subverted. Am- 
bitious demagogues will rise, and the people, through ignorance 
and love of change, will follow them. 

Look at the people of New England. From Britain, their 
fathers had fled to America for religion's sake. Beligion had 
taught them that God created men, to be happy; that to be 
happy they must have virtue ; that virtue is not to be attained 
without knowledge, nor knowledge without instruction, nor 
public instruction without free schools, nor free schools with- 
out legislative order. Among a free people, who fear God, the 
knowledge of duty is the same as doing it. With minds well 
informed of their rights, and hearts glowing with love for them- 
selves and posterity, when war broke out, they rose up against 
the enemy, firm and united, and gave glorious proof how men 
will fight when they know that their all is at stake. 

Francis Marion. 



THE AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM OP THE FUTURE. 
—CHARACTER AND PATRIOTISM TO BE INCUL- 
CATED. 

(From Address before the National Educational Association at Chicago, 
July, 1887, and by permission edited for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

A beautiful vine which grows by my study window has 
given me a thought. Its delicate tendrils floating in the breeze 
touch the strings stretched for the climbing of the vine. Sensi- 
tive to the touch, they instantly coil and by spiral contraction 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 537 

draw the vine to its support. Other tendrils appear, which, by- 
contact and coiling, spread the vine, and soon the veranda will 
be covered with a delicate and soothing shade of green. So 
have I seen for more than forty years the outstretching of our 
educational work, until the five Northwestern States, developed 
under the Ordinance of 1787, have already a school-population 
one-third greater than the entire population of the United States 
one hundred years ago. 

The school system of the future must have life in itself; no 
dead forms will suffice. It must be American, in its deepest sig- 
nificance, liberty-loving, liberty-promoting. As a friend to true 
liberty, it must encourage industry, sobriety, impartiality. It 
must inculcate love of order and respect for law. Its course 
must widen in the principles of government, the theory of poli- 
tics, the resources of the people, questions of economy in indus- 
tries and in finance, the responsibilities of office-holding, with 
more patriotic and less personal ends in view, the sacredness of 
the ballot, the emblem of a freeman's power and the pledge of 
a freeman's honor. The school of the future must impress upon 
the pupil the value of American citizenship in all political and 
economic relations. " Intelligence is essential to good govern- 
ment," declared the Ordinance of 1787. Every day the words 
of John Stuart Mill become more applicable to the American peo- 
ple : " The province of government is to increase to the utmost 
the pleasures, and to diminish to the utmost the pains, which 
men derive from each other." 

The school of the future must emphasize character. This is 
but a recurrence to the principles of our fathers. The tendency 
of the times is towards the worship of the human intellect, the 
enthronement of reason, and to put aside all religious sanctions 
and restraints. Admitting the convenience of moral lives, the 
tendency is to sever morality and religion, to look for the fruit 
when the stock has been cut off at the root. Washington fore- 
saw his country's danger, when he said, "Let us with caution 
indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without 
religion." Jefferson wrote, " In our early struggles for liberty, 
religious freedom" — not freedom from religion, but religious 
freedom — " could not fail to become a primary object." To the 
formation of character our schools must address themselves, or 



538 PATRIOTIC READER. 

our boasted liberties will become unbridled license, and our prop- 
erty and lives be at the mercy of the incendiary and the bomb- 
thrower. Instruction in our duties to our God and our fellow- 
men should never degenerate into the inculcation of opinions as 
to minor and non-essential points of belief or polity. No one 
questions the right of the State to enforce the positive duty of 
patriotism ; nor is the right less sacred, or the duty less pressing, 
because he who is to exercise the one, or to enforce the other, 
has certain views which will make him a partisan in his acts. 

What patriotism is to partisanship, religion is to sectarianism. 
Each is the whole, in its spirit and essence, universally received ; 
while the form may vary with the individual. The genius of 
our government forbids only the spirit of the proselyter, the 
trade of the partisan. It favors the life of the patriot, the in- 
fluence of the man who goes forth in the spirit of that religion 
which is drawn not from the theories of men, but from the pre- 
cepts of the Sacred Scriptures. The religion I would emphasize, 
as an integral part of school-instruction, is that which recognizes 
man's right to freedom, man's right to rule, subject only to the 
" immanence of God in society." 

The spirit of the school of the future must be catholic in 
its literal significance, — universal, general ; and, in the derived 
sense, tolerant, sedate, complaisant, but never too easily com- 
pliant. Were the men who passed the Ordinance of 1787 to 
return to earth and journey in a palace-car from New York to 
Chicago, with but a single night upon their journey, it seems 
to me that they would say, " Progress as you have begun ; be 
tolerant; but in God's name, in Freedom's name, in humanity's 
name, as patriots good and true, we bid you make good charac- 
ter the end of your highest efforts, and put into your schools 
whatever will build up a virtuous character." 

Josiah Little Pickard. 



OUR EDUCATION MUST BE AMERICAN. 

(For the " Patriotic Reader.") 

America, alone, of all the great nations of the earth, is depend- 
ent upon the intelligence and loyalty of her humblest classes 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 539 

for continued existence. Other nations have centralized govern- 
mental forces and inherited prestige of authority which make 
them practically secure against the revolt of ignorance or dis- 
loyalty. We have neither. The only appeal is to the vote of 
the individual, and the humble classes are not only the more 
numerous, but they always vote, while the prosperous citizens 
are not to be uniformly depended upon at the polls. No laws 
will be enacted, none will be interpreted, as none will be exe- 
cuted, to jeopardize the united vote of the humble classes. 

In the past thirty years the wealth of America has quadru- 
pled the entire accumulated wealth of the previous two hundred 
and fifty years, and every ten years adds one-third to the entire 
population. Millions upon millions are added to our population 
every ten years, who know little, or nothing, of our institutions, 
and not only care nothing for our traditions, but are prejudiced 
against them. They do not mingle with our reading classes, 
and have no affiliation with those instinctively loyal to American 
ideas. 

The public school is the one force, is the only force, that can 
unify all classes and conditions of society. Here we have the 
children of the nation in their entirety, and we can, if we will, 
teach them in the schools so much of the grandeur of our pos- 
sessions, of the heroic in our history, of the brilliant in our pros- 
perity, of the fascinating in our traditions, that the fathers of 
the future will be willing to vote for, and die, if need be, for, the 
American idea ; that the mothers of the future will teach their 
sons to develop our resources by industry, to honor the historic 
heroism of our sires, to project the brilliancy of our prosperity 
into the future, to cherish, with unwavering devotion, the tradi- 
tions of the land. 

"We have no other avenue than the public school by which to 
reach the men of to-morrow ; we need no other, if only we im- 
prove the opportunities it affords. We have no school system 
by means of which we can order patriotism into the schools and 
feel sure that it will be taught. We have, however, an Ameri- 
can common-school idea, and this is more effective for good, is 
more certain to bring results, than if that idea was harnessed to 
a cumbrous system. 

Let there be engrafted upon, incorporated into, that idea, the 



540 PATRIOTIC READER. 

privilege, the possibility, the responsibility, of teaching the chil- 
dren and youth of to-day, what American manhood and woman- 
hood will need, to-morrow. 

It is said that when General Grant first took command of a 
large army of troops, he established a rule from which he never 
swerved, that whenever a battle was to be fought, the last thing 
before the order of march was to see that every commander had 
his watch in time with his own. Forty-seven States and Terri- 
tories are waiting for the standard time of the American school- 
idea. Let it be Patriotism first, last, and always ; Patriotism in 
the history ; in the reading-lesson ; in the general exercises ; in 
the flags that adorn the school-rooms. 

Albert Edward WiNsuir. 



PATRIOTIC TRAINING IN OUR SCHOOLS. 

(From Address delivered at Concord, New Hampshire, and by permission 
edited for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

A republic as richly freighted as ours with the hopes and des- 
tinies of posterity cannot afford to allow any part of its popula- 
tion to grow up in ignorance of the real nature of republican 
institutions. A sense of the great interests involved in our 
splendid inheritance kindles patriotism and furnishes motives to 
high character. It is a just reproach of our schools, that, in a 
country where all are responsible for public measures, and may 
become law-makers or administrators, they do so little, by any 
direct process, for the training of statesmen and patriots. Dif- 
fused political intelligence is essential to national progress and 
national conservatism. Without this, the people may stumble 
and fall over unseen obstacles in their path. When capital and 
industry are at stake, when local jealousies or the frenzy of 
parties strike at constitutional prerogatives or the freedom of 
the state, our final appeal must be to the intelligence and pa- 
triotism of the people. The people are the depositaries of power, 
and must determine its course. 

If all our youth, springing from whatever nationality, could 
be brought to know and reflect upon the origin, history, and 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 541 

nature of our political institutions ; if they were early made to 
realize their cost in treasure and blood, and the unspeakable 
benefits they have conferred upon the American people, we 
should have unity and strength of public spirit, and a sensibility 
to the common reputation and interests, that would be stronger 
than the pride of dominion, and a surer defence than armies and 
uavies. 

This, as nothing else, would banish demoralizing customs, 
check the spirit of extravagance, give comprehensiveness and 
discrimination to the popular judgment, and elevate and purify 
the national feelings. Such teaching would tend to create a 
sense of personal independence, and give a force to the right of 
private judgment which would destroy the seiwitude of party 
and the blind allegiance to leaders, and put the country into the 
control of reason and law. It would go beyond this, and not 
allow the people to say, even to the law of the land, " What thou 
biddest, unargued, I obey : so God ordains." Such intelligence, 
such power of personal reflection and moral balance, are the 
conditions of national well-being, if not of national life. 

When the great body of the youth of successive generations 
are so taught and disciplined, we shall have order without force, 
government without arms, power without excess, and freedom 
without license. Manliness is the natural growth of such soils. 
Mere literary and scientific knowledge, broadcast in society, is 
not enough for a people who constitute and administer the gov- 
ernment. The schools of Prussia are unsurpassed in the diffu- 
sion of such knowledge ; but they do not impart to the nation 
the knowledge of the sources of political power, nor teach it 
how those powers should be organized and maintained. 

At ancient Borne the Temple of Honor was entered thi-ough 
the Temple of Virtue. The classic conception is still true. The 
temple of our civic virtue is through the school-house, and 
through it we must enter the temple of civic honor. The self- 
governed must be self-controlled by an intelligence that has been 
instructed at the oracles of philosophy and religion. The paths 
that have been trodden by Hamilton and Webster will have a 
perpetual fascination for the aspiring and ingenuous youth. The 
record of the past, in the development of civil power, through 
which we discover the laws of social growth, is marked with 



542 PATRIOTIC READER. 

injustice and stained with blood ; but it is prophetic of a better 
day, when universal freedom shall be established upon a common 
recognition of the rights of man, and a common obedience to 
the dictates of justice. 

James "Willis Patterson. 



THE PROBLEM OP TO-DAY— PATRIOTISM THE 
GREAT SCHOOL LESSON. 

(From Address before the National Educational Association at Chicago, 
July, 1887, and by permission edited for the " Patriotic Eeader.") 

A careful reader of history cannot fail to be impressed with 
the fact that every race, and, in some measure, every generation, 
of men, seems to have had some special task, seems to have per- 
formed some special function, in the development of the world's 
civilization. Each race seems to have proclaimed some new or 
hitherto forgotten truth, or to have established some new insti- 
tution among men. This is one of the most instructive and 
cheering testimonies in human annals. The idea of government, 
for example, was early developed. It was first administered by 
the patriarch in the family, afterwards in the aggregation of 
families. Then, amid the strifes of contending households and 
their leaders, by the wisdom or brute force of some one mightier 
than the others, a tribe was established. Fired by ambition, some 
still mightier leader arose, and many tribes were consolidated 
into a nation. And at last there came forth the great empires 
of the antique world. Such an empire was Babylon ! Such an 
emperor was Pharaoh! In these later days their rule would be 
intolerable; but in their day they taught the world the possibility 
of great States. 

This was the lesson of those early times. But it was only 
one, and that among the lowest, of the lessons that men needed 
to learn. They needed religion, and the Hebrew race came forth 
as the teacher of it. It was incorporated into that people's 
daily life. It was the foundation of their body politic. The chil- 
dren of Abraham were the priests of mankind. They uttered 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 543 

their sacred sayings with such emphasis that the world was 
compelled to listen. 

Man needed art and philosophy, and the Hellenic race came 
forward as the interpreter of these higher mysteries. It was 
the function of this marvellous people to awaken the sleeping 
intellect of the world; to call into active exercise the reason, the 
imagination and taste of mankind. And well they performed the 
task assigned them, for Grecian ideals still rule, to a great extent, 
the thinking world. 

But, in the course of events, the old idea of empire must be 
replaced by a new and better one. Instead of brute force and 
the mere will of the despot, the nations must be governed by 
principles, by wisely-ordained rules. In short, law must take 
the place of mere personal domination. And, lo, there appeared 
the great Boman Commonwealth. Thus began the study and 
the development of jurisprudence. Law and politics began to 
be a science. 

These achievements of past generations we are, to-day, inherit- 
ing. The idea of national unity comes to us from the dawn of 
history. The religion taught by Moses has spread itself over 
the civilized world. Greek art and Greek thought have schooled 
mankind to a love and appreciation of beauty and discernment 
of truth. The legal maxims that rule our course are lineally 
derived from the Pandects and the Institutes. The nineteenth 
century is the heir of all the ages. 

Now, he is a thriftless heir who does not improve upon his 
estate. If we have taken from our predecessors, we ought to 
bequeath to those who come after us. And what shall be our 
contribution ? What shall the nineteenth century and the Ameri- 
can Bepublic bequeath to mankind ? 

May we not say that the problem of to-day is the educational 
problem? In what age, in what country, have men made such 
vast outlays of money for the establishment of schools ? In our 
own country, one hundred millions a year are contributed to this 
one. Every civilized nation is agitating the question and seeking 
the best attainable light upon it. If the historian of a thousand 
years hence, as he sums up the achievements of the different 
epochs in the world's annals, does not assign to this age the 
honor of being the teacher of the race, in the philosophy and 



544 PATRIOTIC READER. 

practice of education, then it must seem that the record he will 
make for us will be that, with the noblest opportunities ever 
enjoyed by men, we have done nothing. 

Our great lack in these days is not a lack of material wealth. 
We have grown wonderfully rich in all outward things. We 
have compelled all nature to contribute to our comfort. But 
this material prosperity must be considered, after all, a subor- 
dinate thing. The right product of the highest civilization is an 
improved humanity. What are we doing in the developing of 
noble men and women, in the way of increasing the worth and 
enlarging the power of the race? These are the functions of a 
philosophic education. And these results ought to be achieved 
by an honest consideration of every proposed improvement. 
There must be an inspiring, uplifting, but thoughtful progress. 
When the discussions of these times are closed, when the educa- 
tional battles of the time have been fought, there ought to be 
left a priceless and permanent heritage, for the benefit of all 
mankind, — a new and nobler philosophy of education. 

And how can we better subserve the cause of true patriotism 
than by faithfulness in this great work ? What will more ef- 
fectually redound to the glory and permanent worth of this 
great Eepublic, than the development of a sound educational 
philosophy ? To every teacher there is inspiration in the thought 
that he is laying the surest foundations for true national great- 
ness. To every pupil in the schools there is healthful stimulus 
in the thought that, by faithful study and worthy conduct, he, 
too, may prove his loyalty to his country. 

And let it not be forgotten that patriotism is one of the posi- 
tive lessons to be taught in every school. Everything learned 
should be flavored with a genuine love of country. Every 
glorious fact in the Nation's history should be emphasized, 
and lovingly dwelt upon. The names of her illustrious citizens 
should be treasured in the memory. Every child should feel 
that he is entitled to a share, not only in the blessings conferred 
by a free government, but also in the rich memories and glorious 
achievements of his country. 

Richard Edwards. 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 545 



INSTRUCTION IN CIVICS AS A PATRIOTIC DUTY. 

(From Address of the Secretary of the American Institute of Civics, at 
San Francisco, California, at the Annual Meeting of the National Educa- 
tional Association, July, 1888. Edited, by permission, for the " Patriotic 
Reader.") 

The existence and perpetuity of a nation based upon universal 
suffrage, give the school a prominence, and impose duties and 
responsibilities upon the educator, that do not exist under any- 
other form of government. The school is not merely local, utili- 
tarian, communal, a place where the pupil goes, simply to acquire 
specific knowledge and culture that may be useful to him in 
private life ; but, in an eminent sense, is a broad, national insti- 
tution, upon which the highest weal of the republic depends. 

The ideal school is the nursery of intelligent citizenship, and 
the inspiring source of a sterling type of genuine patriotism. 
The age is a progressive one. The demands of our advancing 
civilization require that the curriculum of study should be broad- 
ened, from time to time. An enlightened public sentiment con- 
firms this position, prompts the people to munificent donations 
for schools of every grade, from the kindergarten to the univer- 
sity, and the State willingly stands pledged to pay the necessary 
cost, while reasonably demanding that the school system should 
be so complete and comprehensive as to justify the vast expen- 
diture. 

The humblest citizen is interested in the maintenance and im- 
provement of the public-school system, because it lies at the foun- 
dation of our national existence. The active duties of private 
and public life are better performed by intelligent and cultivated 
men and women, than by the ignorant and uncultured. 

To make certain these results, the schools must train the 
young to become intelligent voters, fair-minded jurymen, upright 
judges, discreet and honest legislators, and incorruptible execu- 
tive officers. 

The early statute laws of Massachusetts had this in view, when 
they specifically enjoined upon " all instructors of youth to exert 
their best endeavors to impress upon the minds of the children 
and youth committed to their care and instruction, the principles 



546 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of piety and justice, a sacred regard for truth, love of country, 
humanity, universal benevolence," and other, enumerated, kin- 
dred virtues, " which are an ornament to human society, and the 
basis upon which a republican constitution is founded." 

The time has come when the essential elements of civic in- 
struction should be given in all grades of our public schools. 
This branch of education will tend to awaken and stimulate sen- 
timents of genuine loyalty to duty, and patriotism in the admin- 
istration of the affairs of the State and nation. Such teaching 
will develop principles of action that give dignity to the indi- 
vidual, increase respect and reverence for the home, and exert 
a salutary influence in the discharge of all public and private 
obligations. Whatever makes the individual citizen more intel- 
ligent and conscientious in the discharge of active personal duty 
will improve both State and nation. 

It may not be necessary to change a school curriculum, if the 
work of the teacher be permeated by the purpose to make the 
facts and principles of good citizenship the life, the very soul, 
of the school. The pupil should absorb the love of country as 
freely as he breathes in pure air. It should surround him in the 
teaching atmosphere of the school itself. History, geography, 
biographical reading, and all departments of science, furnish the 
opportunities through which to inspire youth with ambition to 
fit themselves for future usefulness as good citizens. We em- 
phasize the fact that this education must be begun early, to 
secure the best, the highest results. Lord Bacon said, " Com- 
monwealths and good governments do nourish virtue, grown, 
but do not mend the seeds." The young child, the enfant ter- 
rible, has to be converted, by education, into a citizen, active and 
useful, or he will grow up to become an adult, of ignorance, the 
tool of demagogism. 

But lessons must be given, calculated to make the children 
and youth of our land honest and upright, as well as active 
members of the body politic. Instruction in character-building 
cannot be u'.ven through a few inert formula?, solemn maxims, 
or even by special exhortations. It must blossom out in all 
school training, and be combined with that other fundamental 
law, — that good manners, the amenities of polite society, and 
the graces of fraternity and kindness of heart, must enter into 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 547 

the preparation of the young for the trying ordeals of active 
world-life. 

The true wealth of a nation is not found in its material accu- 
mulations, or in the skill of its people to make money, but in 
its men and women of character and culture who aim in all the 
relations of life to elevate and ennoble humanity. Such a train- 
ing will prepare the young to become a blessing to themselves, 
ornaments to society, and the bulwarks of the State. 

William Evarts Sheldon. 



THE PATRIOTIC CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT. 

(From "The Chautauqua Movement," edited, by permission, for the 
"Patriotic Reader.") 

TVe need an alliance and a hearty co-operation of Home, 
Pulpit, School, and Shop; an alliance consecrated to universal 
culture for young and old ; for all the days and weeks of the 
year; for all the varied faculties of the soul, and in all the 
possible relations of life. 

Love of country and the spirit of a pure and exalted patriot- 
ism must find their quickening and their highest development 
in the ideas which these institutions embody and represent, the 
home idea of mutual love and tenderness, the church idea of 
reverence and conscientiousness, the school idea of personal cul- 
ture, and the shop idea of diligence, economy, and mutual help. 
The young and the old need these things. The rich and the 
poor need them. Capital and labor need them. 

Chautauqua has, therefore, a message and mission for all. It 
exalts education, the mental, social, moral, and religious culture 
of all, everywhere, without exception. It pleads for a universal 
education ; for plans of reading and study ; for all legitimate 
enticements and incitements to ambition ; for all necessary adap- 
tations as to time and topics; for ideal associations which shall 
at once excite the imagination and set the heart aglow. Chau- 
tauqua stretches over the land a magnificent temple, broad as 
the continent, lofty as the heavens, into which homes, churches. 



548 PATRIOTIC READER. 

schools, and shops may build themselves, as parts of a splendid 
university, in which people of all ages and conditions may be 
enrolled as students. It says, " Unify such eager and various 
multitudes. Let them read the same books, think along the 
same lines, sing the same songs, observe the same sacred days, 
— days consecrated to the delights of a lofty intellectual and 
spiritual life." 

A plan of this kind, simple in its provisions, limited in its re- 
quirements, accepted by adults as well as youth, appealing to 
the imagination as well as the conscience, must work miracles, 
intellectual, social, and religious, in household, neighborhood, 
and nation. It brings parents into fuller sympathy with their 
children, at the time when sympathy is most needed, — sympathy 
with them in their educational aims, sympathy with them in 
lines of reading and study. It incites and assists youth, at school, 
to do good work in preparation and recitation, protects against 
the temptations of play-ground and class-room, inspires them to 
higher courses of study and a grander conception of the respon- 
sibility and honor of American citizenship. 

Such education must increase the power of the people in poli- 
tics, augmenting the independent vote which makes party leaders 
cautious where lack of conscience would make them careless con- 
cerning truth and honesty. It must tend to a better understand- 
ing between the classes of society, causing the poor to honor wealth 
won by honest work, economy, and skill ; to despise winners of 
wealth, when greed and trickery gather the gold ; to hate sham 
and shoddy ; to avoid struggles between capital and labor, and 
to promote, in all possible ways, the glorious brotherhood of hon 
esty, sympathy, and culture, — a culture that addresses itself to 
all sides of a man's nature. 

The Chautauqua movement is based upon the idea that the 
whole of life is a school, and that a broad catholic basis of read- 
ing and study is attainable, alike promotive of the principles 
of the noblest Christian citizenship, and true to the law of all 
noble living, that " he who most wisely loves his own denomina- 
tion or party is likely to love others generously," so that the 
fruitage for his country, and the world, shall be that glorious 
liberty with which Christ shall make all men free. 

John Heyl Vincent. 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 549 



TEMPERANCE EDUCATION THE PATRIOT'S ALLY.— 
THROUGH OUR YOUTH THE NATION LIVES. 

(Extract from Address of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Superintendent of Scien- 
tific Instruction of the "Woman's Christian Temperance Union, before the 
Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, January 26, 
1886, in favor of the bill " providing for the study of Physiology and Hy- 
giene and the effects of intoxicating, narcotic, and poisonous substances 
upon the life, health, and welfare, by the pupils in the public schools of the 
Territories, and of the District of Columbia, and in the Military and Naval 
Academies." Edited, by permission, for the " Patriotic Reader." 

Similar enactments have been secured, under the same auspices, in nearly 
all the States of the Union, — that of Louisiana as late as July, 1888. The 
imitative Japanese have reproduced some of the books so endorsed, and in 
Europe the same work has been organized, as appealing to every paternal 
and patriotic instinct that protects home and country. The Sandwich Islands, 
as well as Japan, have these text-books in their own language ; and the 
school-book-publishing houses of America are in harmony of purpose to 
advance the cause.) 

Our fathers believed a government of the people possible, and 
thus the Republic was born, with all its great destinies anchored 
to the masses, with all its possibilities dependent upon the ca- 
pacity of individual citizens for self-government, and that ca- 
pacity again dependent upon the enlightenment of the conscience 
and the understanding. Our fathers were far-seeing men. They 
did not leave this enlightenment of the conscience and under- 
standing to the hap-hazard teaching of the street, of society, or 
even of the home or the church. Their underlying philosophy 
was the now accepted axiom, that " whatever we should have 
appear in the character of citizenship must be wrought into that 
character through the schools." As those times were simple, so 
were their schools. 

But the curriculum of our schools has kept pace with the de- 
mands of our citizenship. When the war of 1861 burst upon 
us, it found a nation of civilians on both sides of the Potomac. 
That struggle was greatly prolonged, while " the boys in blue 
and in gray" were being transformed into soldiers. Taught by 
that experience, many a State said, " This must never happen 
again," and added military drill for schools where boys were old 
enough to carry a musket. 



550 PATRIOTIC READER. 

But a greater evil is in all our land, to-day, than the one that 
temporarily estranged us in ante-bellum days. Uncle Tom could 
say, " This body is Massa Legree's slave, but this soul is God's 
free man." No slave of alcohol can say that. Enslaved soul and 
body are its victims, who are not an alien race, thus subjugated, 
but are our own sons and brothers, husbands and fathers, the 
best-beloved from the homes of an otherwise happy and pros- 
perous people. A " first-born has been slain" by this destroyer, 
in all this fair land, between the oceans, the lakes, and the gulf. 
Never has any evil so undermined the character of our citizen- 
ship, and therefore proved so great an evil to our free institu- 
tions. Alarmed at the inroads of this enemy, the friends of this 
reform are knocking at the doors of the schools for relief. We 
come to ask for an enactment that shall result in the enlighten- 
ment of the consciences and understanding of the people, not 
as to the vice and evil of drunkenness, of which all are now 
assured, but as to the nature of alcohol, and of its effects upon 
the human system, that, thus forewarned, our youth may be fore- 
armed. 

It is one of the most hopeful characteristics of our people, as 
a whole, that when they are convinced of evil they rise, rebuke, 
and correct even their own vices. The States of Vermont, Mich- 
igan, and New Hampshire in one year made their school-houses 
the legal allies of the temperance reform. New York followed 
in 1884. The people said, "This is a sensible method of dealing 
with the evil. It is prevention. It is taking the whole question 
out of the realm of conflicting sentiment, and putting it on the 
basis of intelligence." There are one million five hundred thou- 
sand children in the schools of New York, and, since the passage 
of the law, those children are being pre-empted for sobriety. A 
decade will change the political situation on the alcohol question, 
in that and ever}'- State thus training its children and youth. 
The intent is, that when the pupil learns about the various organs 
of the body he shall learn the consequences following to those 
organs from the use of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics. If, 
when the conscience and understanding are enlightened, the in- 
dividual citizen will not choose the right, then this movement is 
a mistake, and our government will fall ; for either alcohol must 
go under, or the government of the people will perish. 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 551 

I am here, gentlemen, not merely as a person, but in a repre- 
sentative capacity. There are two hundred thousand Christian 
women who are praying this morning for the results of this 
hour. They are in every city, in every town, all over this broad 
land, in every State and every Territory. They represent the 
homes, the Christian homes, of America. If we save the chil- 
dren to-day, we shall have saved the nation to-morrow. In the 
name, then, of this womanhood, I stand here, to plead for the 
children who will be taught in the specified territory covered 
by this bill, and likewise for the influence of such legislation. 
Wherever our flag shall be unfurled over this and other lands 
throughout all Christendom, will be felt the blessed example, 
if this Congress of the United States shall thus provide for the 
Temperance Education of the children under its jurisdiction. 

Mary Hannah Hunt. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SHAPES THE TWEN- 
TIETH.— PATRIOTISM IN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 

(From Address of President Gates, of Rutgers College, New Jersey, 1887. 
Edited, by permission, for the "Patriotic Reader.") 

The eighteenth century said, at its close, "All men shall 
govern." The nineteenth century, as it draws to a close, seems 
to sound out as key-note to the twentieth century, " Now that 
all men govern, it is decreed that all men must be laborers, too." 
" If all are to govern, all must serve. Fitness for kingship is 
proved only by ability to serve." This is the emphasized utter- 
ance of our time. Inculcated in the moral training of our youth, 
it will develop such love of country that the young men of 
to-day, while they hasten the march of America towards higher 
planes of power, will repress the spirit of war and hasten the 
era of universal peace. 

The youth of to-day, by God's appointing, belong to the twen- 
tieth century, — that century whose vast titanic forces the thun- 
dering machinery of this age of steam but half foretells ; while 
the flashing light and subtle force of electricity, which we are 
only beginning to draw from its exhaustless reservoirs, give us 



552 PATRIOTIC READER. 

lightning-like glimpses of the vast potentialities and the intensi- 
fied activities of that unknown, coming age, in which the youth 
of the present are to be actors. 

In the next century, America is to give form and color to the 
world. The nation, which a hundred years ago was but feeling 
its way through the dark dawning of our history, now stands 
among the mightiest of earth's powers. Thoughtful men, the 
world over, are convinced that the closing decade of this cen- 
tury, like that of the last, will be a transition-period, ushering 
in great social and economic changes in Europe and throughout 
the world. It is clear that America is to be the arena for great 
experiments in legislation, for mighty battles of ideas, peaceful, 
we hope, but certainly intense struggles, which shall decide what 
is possible and what impossible in social reforms. Already men 
are taught that the ballot is not a panacea for all evils. We 
have received into our national life certain desperate men, bred 
under Old-World despotisms, who wish to press freedom on into 
dangerous license. " There is nothing beyond republicanism, 
but anarchy," says a thoughtful writer; and here, where the 
ultimate evolution of government has taken place, will restless 
men first attempt to live without government. We believe that 
this mighty evolution of government " of the people, by the 
people, for the people," is of God's own evoking ; and that He 
will continue so to order affairs for us, that only such institutions 
as are founded in justice and sound sense will be supported or 
favored for such a consummation ; but it is in the right training 
of American youth that we are to find the assurance of this 
glorious fruition. The problem of self-culture is to improve to 
the utmost one's own powers ; but the highest law is, " Each one 
for others, and for all." Every man is bound to labor steadily 
and earnestly at something for the common good. They who 
seek to limit too narrowly the use of the word "labor," and 
shut out from the term that close, accurate thinking, which is 
the hardest work a man can do, are levelling- down, not up. The 
basis for brotherhood among men is not that mere power of 
brawn which marks the horse or the ox. When it is understood 
that " labor" includes all who work with hands or brain, and 
that every man, rich or poor, is under obligation to "labor" for 
the common weal, all dangerous socialistic talk of the natural 



PATRIOTISM TO BE BRED IN THE SCHOOLS. 553 

antagonism between labor and capital will become pointless. 
No man is truly educated until he has learned to work from 
other than purely selfish motives ; and a truly liberal course of 
study gives a man a broader and deeper sense of fellowship with 
other men. It culminates in what one has well called " the sub- 
ordination of culture to the nobler aim of building up the insti- 
tutions of humanity." Scholars need not be di*eamers. College- 
bred men have this advantage over competitors of equal natural 
ability, that they have learned to take broad views and to fore- 
cast the future from the wise study of the past. The past 
awakes and lives again for good in such men. 

To the school and the college attaches vast responsibility for 
the future of America. A wholesale regeneration of the race is 
not possible. Society will be purified, institutions will be made 
better, and kept better, only as men are made better, one by 
one. And to teachers, co-operating with Christian homes and 
the Church of the living God, is intrusted the preparation for 
noble, patriotic service, of those who shall be <; the men of light 
and leading" in the century so close at hand. 

The people must be educated, for the people rule. With us, 
in the form of government which Providence has given us, and 
in which we believe, the people are King ; and the loyal hope 
and prayer of our heart is, " May God save the King !" 

Merrill Edward Gates. 



TO THEE, O COUNTRY. 

(Written by Miss Anna Philipine Eichberg, at the age of fifteen. Music 
by Professor Julius Eichberg, of the Boston Conservatory of Music. Used, 
by permission of Oliver Ditson & Co., for the " Patriotic Header.") 

To thee, O country great and free, 

With trusting hearts we cling; 
Our voices, tuned by joyous love, 

Thy power and praises sing ; 
Upon thy mighty, ftiithful heart 

We lay our burdens down ; 
Thou art the only friend who feels 

Their weight without a frown. 



554 PATRIOTIC READER. 

For thee we daily work and strive, 

To thee we give our love, 
For thee with fervor deep we pray 

To Him who dwells above. 
Grod, preserve our Fatherland, 

Let Peace its Euler be, 
And let her happy kingdom stretch 

From north to southmost sea. 

Note.— The American Institute of Civics was incorporated in order to organize 
and develop systematic study of Civics in American schools and colleges. The 
Board of Trustees for 1888, elected at the annual meeting in Washington, in 
March, embraced the following-named members: Chief-Justice M. R. Waite, 
President; Mellen Chamberlain, Boston, Vice-President ; W. E. Sheldon, Boston, 
Secretary; Henry B. Carrington, U.S.A., Boston, Treasurer; Rev. Josiah Strong, 
New York City, Auditor ; also, ex-Justice William Strong, Washington ; A. R. 
Spofford, Librarian of Congress, Washington; N. H. R. Dawson, United States 
Commissioner of Education, Washington ; ex-Governor H. S. Thompson, South 
Carolina, Assistant United States Treasurer, Washington; Carroll D. Wright, 
United States Commissioner of Labor, Washington ; W. N. Trenholm, Wash- 
ington; ex-President Noah Porter, Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut; 
President P. A. P. Barnard, Columbia College, New York; President M. E. 
Gates, Rutgers College, Brunswick, New Jersey; President William Preston 
Johnson, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Professor Alexander 
Winchell, Michigan University, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Chancellor Henry Mac- 
Cracken, University of the City of New York; John Jay, New York City; John 
Bigelow, New York City; Rev. W. H. Du Puy, New York City; President J. H. 
Seelye, Amherst College, Massachusetts; W. W. Scarborough, Cincinnati, Ohio; 
J. W. Dickinson, Secretary State Board of Education, Massachusetts; M. A. 
Newell, Secretary State Board of Education, Maryland ; J. L. Buchanan, State 
Superintendent of Schools, Virginia ; Andrew Carnegie, Cresson, Pennsylvania; 
Senator J. R. Hawley, Connecticut; Senator H. W. Blair, New Hampshire; 
Senator J. S. Morrill, Vermont; Senator J. F. Wilson, Iowa; and H. R. Waite, 
New York City. 

The consulting faculty consisted of Henry Randall Waite, Ph.D., President, 
New York City; Henry Barnard, Hartford, Connecticut; Professor Bernard 
Moses, University of California, Berkeley, California; Edwin Stan wood. Brook- 
line, Massachusetts; Professor W. W. Folwell, University of Minnesota; Pro- 
fessor Alexander Johnston, College of New Jersey, Princeton, New Jersey; 
Francis M. Burdick, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York ; Superintendent 
E. E. White, Public Schools of Cincinnati, late President Purdue University, 
Indiana; Professor E. J. James, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; 
Professor E. B. Andrews, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; and 
President John Eaton, Marietta College, Ohio. 

A foundation has been laid for an annual prize-medal to some college grad- 
uate proficient in the study of Civics, by the investment of funds contributed 
by Mr. Caleb G. Hall, of New Berlin, New York. 

Associations in harmony with the purposes of the Institute exist in several 
States, and State Councils have been organized auxiliary to its general plan. 



PART XVI. 

THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 



INTRODUCTION. 

During the year 1780, Thomas Pownall, a former governor of 
Massachusetts and New Jersey, revisited America, and upon his 
return to England depicted American destiny, as one of " world- 
wide control," in these emphatic terms : 

" Nature has removed America from the Old World and all its embroiling 
and wrangling politics ; without an enemy or a rival, or the entanglement of 
alliances. This New System has taken its equal station with the Nations of 
the earth. Here, no laws frame conditions on which a man is to exercise 
this or that trade. The civilizing activity of the human race forms the 
growth of the State. We see all the inhabitants not only free, but allowing 
universal naturalization to all who wish to be so. In agriculture and me- 
chanical handicrafts, the New World has been led to the improvement of im- 
plements, tools, and machines; leading experience by the hand, to many a 
new invention. In a country like this, where every man has the free and 
full exertion of his powers, an unabated application and perpetual struggle 
sharpen the wits and give training to the mind. This spirit of analyzing 
the mechanical powers hath established a kind of installation of science in 
their hands. Here, many a philosopher, politician, warrior, emerges from 
the wilderness, as the seed rises out of the ground where it hath lain buried 
for a season. 

The Independence of America is fixed as fate. The government of the 
new empire is young and strong, and will struggle by the vigor of internal 
principles of life against disorders, and surmount them. The nature of the 
coast, and of the winds, renders navigation a perpetual, moving intercourse 
of communication ; and the waters of the rivers render inland navigation 
but a further process of that communication ; all of which becomes, as it 
were, one vital* principle of life, extending through one organized being, one 
Nation. Will that enterprising spirit be stopped at Cape Horn, or not pass 
beyond the Cape of Good Hope? Before long, they will be found trading 
in the South Sea, in the Spice Islands, and in China. Commerce will open 

655 



556 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the door to emigration. By constant intercommunication, America will 
approach, every day, nearer and nearer to Europe. 

" North America has become a new Primary Planet, which, while it takes 
its own course, must shift the centre of gravity." 

Ex-President Theodore D wight Woolsey, of Yale College, a 
most eminent scholar in all that bears upon international relation 
and prospect, has uttered a similar sentiment, in this form : 

" The United States may well be envied by the other nations of Christen- 
dom, for the very reason that it is not forced by its position to form a league 
with other weak States against some unscrupulous conqueror; and still more 
for the reason that they have had no policy, as yet, such as would force other 
States into a league against them. We may felicitate our country in that 
neither its form of government, nor its position and neighborhood in the 
world, nor any conceivable aims of its own, will bo likely to make questions 
touching a balance of power, anything more than historical speculations. 
We can be sure that there are no existing States in the world which would 
purposely pick a quarrel with us, when they must send their fleets and armies 
across a thousand leagues of sea to decide it. We can be equally certain that 
no unions of remote and neighboring powers will seek to engage in serious 
wars against us ; nor can we, at present, conceive of any such madness as 
would urge us out of our sphere, to enter into the wars of the European 
world, or into any foreign war." 

This comparative isolation of America, for the time being, 
removes temptations to colonize, and so develops domestic inti- 
macies that an irresistible force would promptly repel assault. 
Education is so universal, that peaceful industry and honorable 
dealing at home and abroad have become an appreciated policy, 
as well as a substantial armor. Diversified industries rapidly 
aid in the assimilation of varied labor. The predominant race 
and language quickly absorb others. Even banners and watch- 
words, at first strange, are soon interpreted by that quick sym- 
pathy which has already converted millions, coming from other 
lands and climes, into useful and loyal citizens of the Great Re- 
public. America may yet become, as the grandest possible frui- 
tion of her destiny, the Pacificator of all international disputes. 
It is the mission of a perfected Christian civilization to realize 

"THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF THE WORLD." 
The forecast of Governor Pownall, in 1780, and the wise con- 
servatism of President Woolsey, are based upon the relations of 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 557 

America to Europe, chiefly. Europe, herself, already accepts as 
a fact the absolute independence of America, but watches with 
more intense concern the new, the civilized Asia. At the Berlin 
Conference in 1878, Count Schouvaloff, the Eussian member, 
urged upon his colleagues a united effort to prevent the expor- 
tation of modern arms and machinery to China and India; espe- 
cially declaring that the famines which desolate those countries, 
coupled with the limited range of diet common to their peoples, 
would at no distant day lead them to inquire into the cause of 
contrast between their position and that of the wealthy nations 
of the West, and that, if they once had arms, and modern mate- 
rial of war, the entire armies of Europe could not preserve the 
treasure in their capitals from a destructive invasion. 
A published outlook, in 1876, used this language : 

" The ever-increasing responsibilities that attend the rapid increase of the 
world's population, and the commercial enterprise which brings half-civilized 
and semi-barbarous peoples into intimacy and interfusion with less populous 
but better educated nations, are pregnant with issues which provoke human 
passion and human conflict. Tidal waves of armed ignorance, superstition, 
and hrutalism are not impossible simply because a select minority of the 
earth's inhabitants are enlightened as well as civilized. History has recorded 
such events, under circumstances no more difficult than the future may evolve. 
The final issue must he resolved by an intelligent recognition of a common 
obligation, to be just to all ; or the conflicts of physical force will go beyond 
their true mission and introduce unparalleled conflict.'' 

Already the foundries, machine-shops, docks, and modern ap- 
pliances by which to equip her armies and control her own 
Pacific seas, have renewed the agitation in Europe as to the 
ultimate issue of an open rupture with China. She can spend 
a million of men a month and not feel it. Her doors were forced 
open, against her will, at the behest of opium. The outflow from 
those open doors has even forced upon America the largest pos- 
sible latitude of domestic police regulations, within the range of 
international comity. President Woolsey has used the term 
" neighborhood in the world." In fact, there is no such possibil- 
ity as an isolated nation, any more. All are neighbors. Neither 
is the experience of Cortez with Mexico to be realized by any 
power, in dealing with China. Her wisdom, her learning, her 
mechanical genius, her intense nationality, and her exceptional 



558 PATRIOTIC READER. 

veneration for her own past history, can give to her an aggressive 
force not easily estimated. It is for America wisely to guard 
her home institutions from the taint of Eastern demoralization, 
while never losing her consciousness that in her impartiality, as 
well as in her pervasive Christianity, lie her invincible strength 
and her true glory. 



THE TRIUMPHS OF OUR LANGUAGE. 

Now gather all our Saxon bards, let hearts and harps be strung, 
To celebrate the triumphs of our good Saxon tongue ; 
For, stronger far than hosts that march with battle-flags unfurled, 
It goes, with Freedom, thought, and truth, to rouse and rule the 
world. 

Stout Albion learns its household lays on every surf-worn shore, 
And Scotland hears it echoing far as Orkney's breakers roar ; 
From Jura's crags, and Mona's hills, it floats on every gale, 
And warms with eloquence and song the homes of Innisfail. 

On many a wide and swarming deck, it scales the rough wave's 

crest, 
Seeking its peerless heritage, the fresh and fruitful West ; 
It climbs New England's rocky steeps, as victor mounts a throne; 
Niagara knows and greets the voice, still mightier than its own. 

It spreads where winter piles deep snows on bleak Canadian 

plains, 
And where, on Essequibo's banks, eternal summer reigns ; 
It glads Acadia's misty coasts, Jamaica's glowing isle, 
And bides where, gay with flowers, green Texan prairies smile. 

It lives by clear Itasca's lake, Missouri's turbid stream, 
Where cedars rise on old Ozark, and Kansas' waters gleam ; 
It tracks the loud swift Oregon through sunset valleys rolled, 
And soars where Californian brooks wash down rich sands of 
gold. 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 559 

It sounds in Borneo's camphor groves, on seas of fierce Malay, 
In fields that curb old Ganges' flood, and towns of proud Bombay ; 
It wakes up Eden's flashing eyes, dark brows, and swarthy limbs ; 
The dark Liberian soothes her child with English cradle-hymns. 

Tasmania's maids are wooed and won in gentle Saxon speech ; 
Australian boys read Crusoe's life by Sydney's sheltered beach ; 
It dwells where Afric's southmost capes meet oceans broad and 

blue, 
And Nieuveld's rugged mountains gird the wide and waste 

Karroo. 



It kindles realms so far apart, that, while its praise you sing, 
These may be clad with autumn's fruits, and those with flowers 

of spring ; 
It quickens lands whose meteor lights flame in an Arctic sky, 
And lands for which the Southern Cross hangs its orbed fires on 

high. 

It goes with all that prophets told, and righteous kings desired, 
With all that great apostles taught, and glorious Greeks admired, 
With Shakespeare's deep and wondrous verse, and Milton's 

loftier mind, 
With Alfred's laws and Newton's lore, to cheer and bless man- 
kind. 

Mark, as it spreads, how deserts bloom, and Error flees away, 
As vanishes the mist of night before the star of day ; 
But, grand as are the victories whose monuments we see, 
They are but as the dawn which speaks of noontide yet to be. 

Take heed, then, heirs of Saxon fame, take heed, nor once dis- 
grace, 

With deadly pen or spoiling sword, our noble tongue and race. 

Go forth prepared, in every clime, to love and help each other, 

And judge that they who counsel strife would bid you smite a 
brother. 



560 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Go forth, and jointly speed the time by good men prayed for 

long, 
When Christian States, grown just and wise, will scorn revenge 

and wrong, — 
When Earth's oppressed and savage tribes shall cease to pine or 

roam, 

All taught to prize these English words, — Faith, Freedom, 

Heaven, and Home. 

James Gilbourne Lyon. 



THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE WORLD'S FUTURE. 

(Kevised, from " Our Country," by the author, for the " Patriotic Header.") 

Every race which has deeply impressed itself on the human 
family has been the representative of some grand idea which 
has given direction to the nation's life, and form to its civiliza- 
tion. The noblest races have always been lovers of liberty. 
That love ran strong in the German blood, and has profoundly 
influenced the institutions of all the branches of the great Ger- 
man family ; but it was left for the Anglo-Saxon branch fully 
to recognize the right of the individual to himself, and formally 
declare it the foundation-stone of government. 

The two great needs of mankind, that men may be lifted 
into the light of the highest Christian civilization, are, — first, a 
pure, spiritual Christianity, and, second, civil liberty. These are 
the forces which have contributed most to the elevation of the 
human race, and must continue to be the most efficient ministers 
to its progress. The Anglo-Saxon, as the great representative 
of these two ideas, sustains peculiar relations to the world's 
future ; and in the fact of his rapidly-increasing strength, we 
have wellnigh a demonstration of his destiny. During two 
hundred years since the reign of Charles the Second, our popu- 
lation has increased two-hundred-and-fifty-fold. Already the 
Anglo-Saxon race, though comprising only one-fifteenth part of 
mankind, rules more than one-third of the earth's surface, more 
than one-fourth of its people, and increases more rapidly than 
all the races of continental Europe. Emigration from Europe, 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 561 

which is certain to increase, exerts a modifying influence on the 
Anglo-Saxon stock ; but their descendants are sure to be Anglo- 
Saxonized. North America is to be his great home, the prin- 
cipal seat of his power, the centre of his life and influence. 

Charles Sumner wrote of the coming time, when " the whole 
continent with all its various States shall be a Plural Unit, with 
one Constitution, one Liberty, and one Destiny," and when "the 
national example will be more puissant than Army or Navy, for 
the conquest of the world." It needs no prophet's eye to see 
that the civilization of the United States is to be the civilization 
of America, and that the future of the continent is ours. 

Our national genius is Anglo-Saxon, but not English. The 
race is already more effective here than in the mother-country, 
and this superiority is due, in a large manner, to its highly-mixed 
origin. What took place a thousand years ago, and more, in 
England, again transpires to-da}^, in the United States. There 
is a new commingling of races of substantially the same element 
that constituted the original Anglo-Saxon mixture, and Herbert 
Spencer says, " It is to be inferred from biological truths that 
the eventual mixture of the allied varieties of the Aryan race 
will produce a more powerful type of man than has hitherto 
existed, — a type more plastic, more adaptable, and more capable 
of understanding the modification needful for complete social 
life, and that, whatever tribulations they may have to pass 
through, the Americans may reasonably look forward to a time 
when they will have produced a civilization grander than any 
the world has known." " Already," says Dr. Clarke. " the Eng- 
lish language, saturated with Christian ideas, gathering up into 
itself the best thought of all the ages, is the great agent of civ- 
ilization throughout the world, and moulding the character of 
half the human race." Jacob Grimm, the German philologist, 
said of this language, " It seems chosen, like its people, to rule 
in future times, in a still greater degree, in all the corners of 
the earth." He predicted, indeed, that the language of Shake- 
speare would eventually become the language of all mankind. 
Is not Tennyson's noble prophecy to find its fulfilment in Anglo- 
Saxondom's extending its domain and its influence 

" Till the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world"? 
36 



562 PATRIOTIC READER. 

Let us weld together in a chain the links of our logic which 
hind us to our destiny. It is manifest that the Anglo-Saxon 
holds in his hands the destinies of all mankind for ages to come. 
It is evident that the United States is to be the home of this 
race, the principal seat of his power, the great centre of his in- 
fluence. It is equally true that the great West, because it con- 
tains twice the room and resom-ces of the East, is to dominate 
the Nation's future, and that this very generation is to deter- 
mine the character, and hence the destiny, of the West. 31 ay 
God, therefore, open the eyes of this generation to behold the 
possibilities within the Christian patriot's grasp ; to foster in 
our youth that love of country which finds its grandest fruition 
in pui'ity as well as power, and assimilates all incoming races to 
the type which can be perfected only through a pure Christianit}" 
and universal civil liberty ! 

When Napoleon drew up his troops before the Mamelukes, 
under the shadow of the Pyramids, pointing to the latter, he 
said to his soldiers, " Eemember that from yonder heights forty 
centuries look down upon you !" Men of this generation, from 
the pyramid-top of opportunity on which God has set us, we look 
down on forty centuries ! We stretch our hand into the future 
with power to mould the destinies of unborn millions. 

" We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time, 
In an age on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime." 

We, of this generation and nation, occupy the Gibraltar of 
the ages which commands the world's future. 

Josiah Strong. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR COUNTRY. 

It is but a few years since Ave entered upon the conquest of a 
country wilder than Germany in the days of Cresar, and ten 
times more extensive; and yet in that short space we have 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 56 o 

reached a point of physical development which twenty centuries 
have not accomplished there. The forests have fallen down, the 
earth has been quarried, cities and towns have sprung up all 
over the immense extent of our land, thronged with life, and 
resounding with the multitudinous hum of traffic. The awful 
forces evolved by chemical and dynamic science have been sub- 
dued to man's dominion, and have become submissive to his will 
and more powerful than the old fabled genii of the Arabian tales. 
Little did our fathers, little did we ourselves, even the youngest 
of us, dream, in the days of our childhood, when we fed our 
wondering imaginations with the prodigies wrought by those 
elemental spirits evoked by the talismanic seal of Solomon, that 
these were but faint foreshadowings of what our eyes should 
see in the familiar goings-on of the every-day life about us. Yet 
so it truly is. Ha ! the steam-engine is your true elemental spirit ; 
it more than realizes the gorgeous ideas of the old Oriental 
imagination. That had its different orders of elemental spirits, 
genii of water, of earth, and of air, whose everlasting hostility 
could never be subdued to unity of purpose. This combines the 
powers of all in one, and a child may control them ! Across the 
ocean, along our coast, through the length of a hundred rivers, 
we plough our way against currents, wind, and tide ; while, on 
iron roads, through the length and breadth of the land, innu- 
merable trains, thronged with human life and freighted with the 
wealth of the nation, are urging their way in every direction, 
flying through the valleys, thundering across the rivers, pant- 
ing up the sides or piercing through the hearts of the moun- 
tains, with the resistless force of lightning, and scarcely less 
swift ! 

All this is wonderful! The old limitations to human en- 
deavor seem to be broken through. The everlasting conditions 
of time and space seem to be annulled. Meanwhile, the mu- 
nificent achievements of to-day lead but to grander projects 
for to-morrow. Success in the past serves but to enlarge the 
purposes of the future; and the people are rushing onward in 
a career of physical development to which no bounds can be 

Caleb Spraque Henry. 



564 PATRIOTIC READKK. 

THE FUTURE OP THE UNITED STATES. 

I have faith in the future, because I have confidence in the 
present. With our growth in wealth and in power, I see no 
abatement in those qualities, moral and physical, to which so 
much of our success is owing; and while thus true to ourselves, 
true to the instincts of freedom, and to those other instincts 
which, with our race, seem to go hand in hand with Freedom, 
love of order, and respect for law (as law, and not because it is 
upheld by force), we must continue to prosper. 

The sun shines not upon, has never shone upon, a land where 
human happiness is so widely disseminated, where human gov- 
ernment is so little abused, so free from oppression, so invisible, 
intangible, and yet so strong. Nowhere else do the institutions 
which constitute a State rest upon so broad a base as here ; and 
nowhere else are men so powerless, and institutions so strong. In 
the wilderness of free minds, dissensions will occur; and in the 
unlimited discussion in writing and in speech, in town-meetings, 
newspapers, and legislative bodies, angry and menacing language 
will be used ; irritations will arise and be aggravated ; and those 
immediately concerned in the strife, or breathing its atmosphere, 
may fear, or feign to fear, that danger is in such hot breath and 
passionate resolves. But outside, and above, and beyond all 
this, is the People, — steady, industrious, self-possessed, caring 
little for abstractions, and less for abstractionists, but with one 
deep, common sentiment, and with the consciousness, calm but 
quite sure and earnest, that in the Constitution and the Union, 
as they received them from their fathers, and as the}' themselves 
have observed and maintained them, is. the sheet-anchor of their 
hope, the pledge of their prosperity, the palladium of their 
liberty ; and with this, is that other consciousness, not less calm 
and not less earnest, that in their own keeping exclusively, and 
not in that of any party leaders, or party demagogues, or politi- 
cal hacks or speculators, is the integrity of that Union and that 
Constitution. It is in the strong arms and honest hearts of the 
great masses, who are not members of Congress, nor holders of 
office, nor spouters at town-meetings, that resides the safety of 
the State ; and these masses, though slow to move, are irresist- 
ible, when the time and the occasion for moving come. 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 565 

I have faith, therefore, in the Future ; and when, at the close 

of this half-century, which so comparatively few of us are to 

see, the account shall again be taken, and the question be asked, 

What has New York done since 1850 ? I have faith that the 

answer will be given in a city still advancing in population, 

wealth, morals, and knowledge, — in a city free, and deserving, 

by her virtues, her benevolent institutions, her schools, her courts, 

and her temples, to continue free, and still part and parcel of this 

great and glorious Union, which may God preserve till Time shall 

be no more! „ rm Vr 

Charles JiiNQ. 



THE DESTINY OP OUR REPUBLIC. 

Let no one accuse me of seeing wild visions and dreaming 
impossible dreams. I am only stating what may be done, and 
what will be done. We may most shamefully betray the trust 
reposed in us, — we may most miserably defeat the fond hopes 
entertained of us. We may become the scorn of tyrants and 
the jest of slaves. From our fate, oppression may assume a 
bolder front of insolence, and its victims sink into a darker 
despair. 

In that event, how unspeakable will be our disgrace, — with 
what weight of mountains will the infamy lie upon our souls ! 
The gulf of our ruin will be as deep, as the elevation we might 
have attained is high. How wilt thou fall from heaven, O Lu- 
cifer, son of the morning ! Our beloved country with ashes for 
beauty, the golden cord of our union broken, its scattered frag- 
ments presenting every form of misrule, from the wildest an- 
archy to the most ruthless despotism, our " soil drenched with 
fraternal blood," the life of man stripped of its grace and dignity, 
the prizes of honor gone, and virtue divorced from half its en- 
couragements and supports, — these are gloomy pictures, which 
I would not invite your imaginations to dwell upon, but only to 
glance at, for the sake of the warning lessons we may draw 
from them. 

Eemember that we can have none of those consolations which 
sustain the patriot who mourns over the undeserved misfortunes 
of his country. Our Rome cannot fall, and we be innocent. 



566 PATRIOTIC READER. 

No conqueror will chain us to the car of his triumph ; no count- 
less swarm of Huns and Goths will bury the memorials and 
trophies of civilized life beneath a living tide of barbarism. Our 
own selfishness, our own neglect, our own passions, and our own 
vices will furnish the elements of our destruction. With our 
own hands we shall tear down the stately edifice of our glory. 
We shall die of self-inflicted wounds. 

But we will not talk of themes like these. We will not think 
of failure, dishonor, and despair. We will elevate our minds to 
the contemplation of our high duties, and the great trust com- 
mitted to us. We will resolve to lay the foundations of our pros- 
perity on that rock of private virtue, which cannot be shaken 
until the laws of the moral world are reversed. Prom our own 
breasts shall flow the salient springs of national increase. Then 
our success, our happiness, our glory, will be as inevitable as 
the inferences of mathematics. We may calmly smile at all the 
croakings of all the ravens, whether of native or foreign breed. 

The whole will not grow weak, bj T the increase of its parts. 
Our growth will be like that of the mountain-oak, which strikes 
its roots more deeply into the soil, and clings to it with a closer 
grasp, as its lofty head is exalted, and its broad arms stretched 
out. The loud burst of joy and gratitude, which on this, the an- 
niversary of our Independence, is breaking from the full hearts 
of a mighty people, will never cease to be heard. No chasms 
of sullen silence will interrupt its course, no discordant notes of 
sectional madness mar the general harmony. Year after year 
will increase it, by tributes from unpeopled solitudes. The 
farthest West shall hear it, and rejoice ; the Oregon shall swell 
it with the voice of its waters ; the Eocky Mountains shall fling 
back the glad sound from their snowy crests. 

George Stillman Hillard. 



A HAPPY COUNTRY. 

(By permission, from the " North Carolina Speaker" of Alfred Williams 
& Co., Raleigh, North Carolina.) 

In the allotments of Providence we have been placed in a 
pleasant and beautiful country, — a country washed on either 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 567 

hand by the waters of the circling seas, and teeming with all 
the elements of prosperity and power. This glorious country, 
this chosen seat of science and of art, this happy and peculiar 
residence of civil and religious liberty, has been won for us by 
the constancy and courage of our ancestors ; it is the birthplace 
of blood and battle and prolonged disaster; and it is ours to 
defend, ours to enjoy, and ours to transmit in untarnished splen- 
dor to posterity. 

We can only do this by looking back and drawing wisdom 
from that fountain of sacred and mighty memories which gushes 
from the rock upon which our government is based, and by look- 
ing forward and anticipating what our children and our chil- 
dren's children will expect at our hands when they shall have 
reached the shores of existence. 

The republics that have gone before speak to us from amid 
the long dark sleep of ages, and warn us to shun those breakers 
of licentiousness, anarchy, and violence, over which they went 
down in the fathomless chambers of ruin and oblivion. If we 
will listen with reverence to the warnings which they utter ; if 
we will profit by the teachings of our ancestors ; if we will seek 
for the old paths, and, when we find them, walk in them ; if we 
will put from us everything which tends to foster frivolity and 
pride ; if, as a people, we will cherish and cultivate towards 
each other a spirit of kindness, forbearance, and generosity ; if 
the States will be satisfied with those powers which belong to 
them, and if the General Government will perform the duties its 
framers intended it should perform ; if we will labor to dissemi- 
nate the blessings of education and the lights of religion and 
morality among all the people ; above all, if every citizen in the 
Eepublic, from the President in his palace to the day-laborer in 
his cottage, will execute the laws where it is his duty to execute 
them, and submit to the laws where it is his duty to submit ; and 
if he will enshrine all the virtues in his heart, as he may do, and 
ought to do, and wear his titles as he now wears them, only on 
his brow, then may we proudly and confidently hope that the 
renown and the glory which burst in splendor from the dark- 
ness of the Revolution shall never die. 

Then the nations, as they rise and fall, and all the generations 
yet to be, as they come up and sweep onward to the shores of 



568 PATRIOTIC READER. 

the untrodden world, may behold no land more free, more pros- 
perous, or more glorious than this, our own beloved, independent 

America. 

William Woods Holden. 



OUR COUNTRY.— PRACTICAL HINTS FROM GEN- 
ERAL SHERMAN'S SCRAP-BOOK. 

(By permission, edited for the " Patriotic Reader.") 
OUR LANGUAGE AND LAW TO BE SUPREME. 

(Two extracts from Speech at Banquet of Knights of St. Patrick, St. Louis, 
Missouri, March 17, 1884.) 

"We have had our War of Independence, we have had wars 
of conquest with Mexico and the Indians, and, the hardest of 
all, we have had a war with ourselves, to maintain our glorious 
Union of States, the Palladium of Liberty for the whole world. 
As one of the means to guard this Union, we must preserve the 
Anglo-Saxon language, the best medium of expression yet in- 
vented by man. It is the language of Shakespeare, Milton, and 
Burns ; it is the language in which Burke, Sheridan, Grattan, 
Curran, and O'Connell pleaded for the common rights of Irish- 
men ; the same in which our Irving, Webster, Clay, and Lincoln 
made their impress on the minds and hearts of the whole human 
race. This is the work of peace ; but " peace hath her victories, 
no less renowned than war." 

The amount of labor done in " Our Country" in the last cen- 
tury is simply herculean. But increase of population, wealth, 
and physical resources does not necessarily imply strength and 
progress, unless attended by a corresponding advance in intel- 
lectual and moral qualities. There is no doubt of the existence 
of too much crime, which should command universal attention, 
if we intend to make our country what it should be, not only 
free, but safe to life and property. I am convinced that our 
people are quite as good as their fathers; but the telegraph 
collects from the four quarters of the globe everything that is 
exciting, every morning ; whereas our fathers only heard of the 
murders and robberies in their immediate neighborhood. I do 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 569 

hope and pray that our judges and lawyers, without endangering 
the innocent, will make punishment follow crime so sharp as to 
rob mobs and vigilance committees of their pretence to interfere, 
thereby bringing disgrace on our country, if not on civilization 
itself. 

NO MORE WEST TO HUNT FOR OR TO HUNT IN. 

In my day, and within my memory, more than one hundred 
thousand miles of railroad have been built, over which steam- 
cars travel in a single day more than a horse-wagon used to do 
in a month. The country is literally gridironed with railroads, 
so that every valley and gulch is accessible to the emigrant, 
without the tedious delay of even ten years ago. The old trap- 
pers and hunters that used to rendezvous at St. Louis find their 
occupations gone, and most of them have departed for the happy 
hunting-ground of the Indians ; and the Indian finds himself 
corralled, transformed into a good Christian, or, if he still yearns 
to satisfy his native instincts, he must join some perambulating 
circus. 

It is reported of Mr. Horace Greeley that to an applicant for 
place he said, " Go West, young man, and grow up with the 
country." At the beginning of this century, Ohio and Ken- 
tucky were the " Far West." As late as 1836, General Jackson, 
one of the most keen, shrewd, and penetrating observers, advised 
his old Indian enemies, for whom he had a friendship, to emi- 
grate to their present territory west of Arkansas, where they 
"would never be disturbed by white settlers." But now the 
West is obliterated, and our country is divided, like a great 
army, into a right, centre, and left, — the Atlantic, Mississippi, 
and the Pacific States. Thus organized, we are admirably 
prepared for the battle of life, which is defined, by highest 
authority, " to go forth, increase, multiply, and replenish the 
earth," — not to kill and lay waste, but to bring out of the moun- 
tains their hidden treasures, to shape them to the use of man, to 
build up bright and cheerful homes for the families yet to come. 

There has been a tendency, of late years, for our people to 
gather into cities and towns, so that lands are cheaper in Mary- 
land, Virginia, and in St. Louis County, Missouri, than thirty 
years ago, and the average wages of a clerk or shopkeeper 



570 PATRIOTIC READER. 

are less than those of a carpenter, mason, or even a day-laborer. 
Therefore I advise young men, instead of tramping over the 
continent in search of " the West," to go into the country near 
their homes, get possession of a piece of land, and there accumu- 
late property, instead of money. 

"OUK COUNTRY NOT BIG ENOUGH TO DIVIDE." 

(Responsive to Toast at Carriage- Makers' Banquet at Southern Hotel, St. 
Louis, October 16, 1884.) 

. . . This subject is very large, geographically, mineralogically, 
industrially, or in any other sense. This is a beautiful country, — 
beautiful in its form, in its majesty, in its diversity. I believe that 
the tone of public sentiment will gradually change, and that we 
will, finally, have no designation of North and South. "We regard 
the whole country as a unit; whosoever dwells upon a foot 
of the soil over which the flag of the United States floats, is a 
citizen of the United States and of a common country. There 
were a few people once who thought we were big enough to 
divide into two, or maybe four, sections. They found themselves 
dreadfully mistaken ; because there shall be a single United 
States, and each and eveiy part have its constitutional rights, un- 
questioned, and no more. The people of New York and Louisi- 
ana shall have the right to live in peace and quiet, and shall be 
protected against any foreign enemy by the General Government; 
and as for segregating themselves away, they might as well at- 
tempt to move the Alleghany Mountains ; they cannot do it. 
They may die, or migrate to other lands ; but they cannot carry 
their country with them. 

LOCALISM. 

(From Letter in New Orleans Picayune, May 26, 1879.) 

To love one's country, one's place of birth, is universal and 
natural, and actually seems intensified in the inverse ratio of the 
advantages of location, in a common-sense view. The natives 
of Scotland and Switzerland are famous for their love of birth- 
place, although in either country it calls for a life-struggle to 
eke out of earth enough to keep bod}' and soul together. So in 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 571 

South Carolina and Vermont the natives are most boastful of 
their birthplace, when, in fact, they are among the poorest of 
the States ; whereas the natives of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Kentucky, rich in soil and prolific in food, migrate like bees 
from an overcrowded hive. There is no event in life over which 
man has less control than his birthplace, and yet he will fight 
for its prejudices and traditions ; whereas the land of his adop- 
tion in manhood, in the full possession of all his faculties, and 
with deliberate judgment, is regarded with a kind of indifference. 
Mathematically, the whole is greater than a part, and is worthy 
of more respect and affection. Instead of boasting of the spot 
where one is born, by an accident over which he has no control, I 
should suppose the boast would be of the former ; that is, every 
American should be proud of his whole country, rather than a 
part. How much more sublime the thought that you live at the 
root of a tree whose branches reach the beautiful fields of west- 
ern New York and the majestic cafions of the Yellowstone, and 
that with every draught of water you take the outflow of the 
pure lakes of Minnesota, and the drippings of the dews of the 
Alleghany and Eocky Mountains I 

E PLT7KIBUS UNUM. 

(Extracts from Letter to Judge Braughn, of New Orleans, Louisiana.) 

As a matter of course, each State may be the best judge of 
the interests and well-being of its inhabitants, and to that extent 
may be " sovereign ;" but its area may, like that of Louisiana, 
astride the mouth of a river common to twenty other " sovereign" 
States, have interests away beyond its own borders, and far out- 
side the knowledge and interests of local population and authori- 
ties. The people of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Montana, 
and the whole central part of the continent have a word to say 
in whatever concerns the mouth of the Mississippi. I believe the 
war settled this great question finally, and forever, just as much 
as it did the question of slavery. The power of the National 
Government must be coextensive with its dominions. It may 
abuse such power and be tyrannical, as all power may be abused ; 
but this does not alter the case. Unless it possess the right and 
power to enforce its own laws, everywhere, and at all times, it 



572 PATRIOTIC READER. 

ceases to be a government, and will become contemptible, result- 
ing in anarchy and downfall. Rivalry among the States, and 
pride at the intellectual and physical development of each, by 
its own inhabitants, are right and proper, but if a State, " One 
of the Many," claims to be above the whole, and usurps such 
power, the Nation must suppress it, first by judicial process, 
and, if that be not sufficient, then by force. If this conclusion 
be universally recognized as the law and the fact, it never will 
occur. 

William Tecumskh Sherman. 



GENERAL GRANT'S OUTLOOK FOR AMERICA. 

(Prom Address delivered at the Vendome Hotel, Boston, April 27, 1888, by 
ex-Governor Boutwell, of Massachusetts, once a member of President Grant's 
Cabinet. By permission, for the " Patriotic Reader.") 

One feature of General Grant's character he never fully de- 
veloped to the public, but hints of which you will observe in his 
writings : his belief in the greatness of this country, in its insti- 
tutions, in the capacity of the English-speaking people to spread 
the cause of Christianity and of republican institutions over 
the surface of the globe. He had not an opportunity, in his 
public life, to do what was in his thought ; he had opportunity 
only for one act, not much observed, but an act which is to have 
a ver}' important influence in the fortunes of this country, — the 
acquisition of a protecting power over the Hawaiian Islands, 
centrally situated in the Pacific Ocean. 

He accepted the opportunity for that acquisition, upon the 
idea that, as a country, we should turn our faces westward ; 
that Europe was already occupied; that it had a population 
already quite equal to its capacity ; that for the future it was 
of but little consequence to us ; that the peoples with whom we 
should cultivate associations and alliances were the people south 
of us, upon this continent, and the people west of us, upon the 
Asiatic continent, where there are hundreds of millions of people 
wailing for an opportunity to enjoy the advantages of commerce, 
and social and, in time, political intercourse with us. 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 573 

To those people, to those countries, to those future events, his 
eye was turned, and, although he had not the opportunity, in 
his public life, to develop those ideas, and certainly only a tran- 
sient opportunity to seize upon an event, as a preliminary step 
to this great future, still he believed in the capacity of this 
country to take a central position in the affairs of the world, and 
not by arms, for he was a man of peace, but by the forces of 
civilization, led by commercial intercourse, to exercise a power 
for good over this continent ; forming alliances, not for pur- 
poses of war, or, necessarily, of defence, but for the purpose of 
infusing our institutions and our ideas, which he believed to be 
better than the institutions and the ideas of any other country, 
south, over this continent, and westward, over Asia. 

It may not be for some of us, who are not exactly in the 
prime, to say nothing of the youth, of life, but there are those, 
now in active pursuits, who will see some of the results towards 
which the eye of General Grant in faith was turned. 

George Sewall Boutwell. 



OUR TERRITORIAL GROWTH HAS MARKED OUR 
DUTY AND DESTINY. 

(For the "Patriotic Eeader.") 

The Revolutionary War had been fought, and our indepen- 
dence had been won. Adams, Jay, and Franklin were to nego- 
tiate with Great Britain and France the treaty of peace. The 
Spanish Count D'Aranda suggested as our frontier boundary 
the western line of Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, and 
Georgia. The Bourbon upon the throne of France was not 
unwilling to play into the hands of the other Bourbon upon 
the throne of Spain. Had they succeeded, the little American 
republic would have been '-cribbed and confined" east of the 
Appalachian Range, controlling less than three hundred and 
seventy-five thousand square miles of territory. Possibly France 
and Spain might have consented to the line of the rivers Ohio 
and the lower Mississippi. This would have given us five hun- 



574 PATRIOTIC READER. 

dred and fifty thousand square miles. But our three consum- 
mate diplomatists cut the knot, and agreed with the British 
commissioner upon other boundaries, and the treaty was signed 
without the knowledge of France. By this diplomatic action we 
secured the Mississippi Biver as our western frontier. This gave 
us the entire territory northwest of the Ohio, a country of great 
fertility, and, eventually, of the utmost importance, embracing 
nearly, or quite, two hundred and seventy thousand additional 
square miles. 

Thus it came to pass that the young republic began its national 
career with a territory extending from Maine to Georgia, from 
the Atlantic to the " Father of Waters," and covering an area of 
eight hundred and twenty thousand square miles, — a territory 
almost as large as Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and 
Italy, combined. 

There seems to be no evidence that the statesmen of that 
early day ever thought that our country would, through all 
time, need or receive any increase of territory. But an over- 
ruling and beneficent Providence shaped the destiny of the new 
Nation better than the plans of the wisest of statesmen. The 
century closed. Washington lived only in the memory of his 
grateful countrymen. Jefferson was President. Robert R. Liv- 
ingston, our Minister to France, endeavored to purchase the 
little island of New Orleans. Napoleon was First Consul of 
France. He was on the eve of war with Great Britain. He 
saw clearly that England could not better open her aggressive 
action than by the seizure of New Orleans. To prevent this, 
and to replenish the overtasked French exchequer, he sold, in 
1803, to the United States, the entire Province of Louisiana, ex- 
tending from the Gulf of Mexico to latitude 49°, and from the 
river to the " Stony Mountains," covering an area of more than 
nine hundred thousand square miles. 

When Napoleon had signed the treaty, he laid down his pen, 
saying, " There ; I have, this day, forever increased the power of 
the United States, and have given to England a maritime rival 
that shall, some day, humble her pride." Prophetic words ! — 
ten years later recalled by the victory of Commodore Perry on 
Lake Erie ! 

In 1819 followed the purchase of Florida from Spain; in 1845, 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 575 

the annexation of Texas ; in 1846, the final settlement of the 
Oregon boundary; in 1848, the purchase of New Mexico and 
California from Mexico ; in 1853, the G-adsden purchase ; and 
in 1867 Secretary Seward negotiated the purchase, from Eussia, 
of Alaska. This completes our present immense territory. The 
" Stars and Stripes" now float over a vast continent, extending 
from the Atlantic to the Great Ocean, and from the Gulf to 
the Frozen Seas of the North. The Great Eepublic may now 
be considered as embracing four nearly equal quarters, of about 
nine hundred thousand square miles each : — the first being the 
original territory east of the Mississippi Eiver ; tbe second, the 
Louisiana Purchase; the third, Texas and the Mexican Prov- 
inces ; and the fourth covering Oregon and Alaska. 

It is easily seen that this remarkable increase of territory has 
been at once the opportunity and the occasion for our rapid 
growth in power, resources, and wealth. It has given us the 
gold-mines of California, the wheat-fields of Dakota, the seal- 
fisheries of Alaska, and the timber-regions of Puget Sound. It 
has offered homes and freeholds to millions of emigrants from 
all lands, and has increased beyond measure our productions and 
our exportations. 

The question now confronts us, " What shall the future be ?" 

Thomas W. Dorr, of Ehode Island, writing in 1853, used the 
following language : 

" The world is now rapidly tending to the aggregation or con- 
solidation of nations into a few great Empire-States. France 
is aiming at further accessions of territory. Germany will be, 
before many years, united in a confederation. Asia, west of the 
British dominions, will fall into the hands of Eussia or England. 
China and Japan will be Anglicized, or Americanized. The 
United States will take in the whole continent of America. 
Nor is it less certain that our republic . . . will give the casting 
vote, with a mailed hand, in favor of the freedom and progress 
of the race. . . . Let our republic be in readiness, when called 
upon in the future to decide the fate of nations, to hold up, for 
their imitation, the example of a state whose institutions are 
more conducive to the greatest freedom and welfare of mankind 
than all the world has ever seen." 

William Augustus Mowrt. 



576 PATRIOTIC READER. 



AMERICA AND ASIA IN THE FUTURE .-AMERICA 
THE "GREAT PACIFIC POWER."* 

(By the Author of " The Mikado's Empire," " Corea, the Hermit Nation," 
" Japanese Fairy-World," " Matthew Calbraith Perry," etc. For the " Pa- 
triotic Reader.") 

Divine Providence ordained in human history two great 
types of civilization, — one progressive and "Western, the other 
conservative and Oriental. 

Following the course of the sun, the nations moving into 
Europe towards the Atlantic have had careers of rapid advance- 
ment, mastery over nature, permanency of historical monuments, 
but also of decay, death, ruins, silence. This we read in the his- 
tory of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Carthage, Phoenicia, Greece, 
and Rome. 

The other peoples, moving eastward from their highland 
homes of Asia, have filled the peninsulas, river-basins, and plains 
of the continent and islands of the Pacific, settling down into 
fixed forms of social life that have outlasted wars, dynasties, and 
political revolutions. "With a less rapid and brilliant history, 
unmarked as in the "West by conquests over nature, they gave 
themselves to thought and work, tenaciously adhering to certain 
great social principles. Custom made law ; writing fixed speech ; 
the reverence of the child to the parent, the subordination of 
the young to the old and of innovation to ancient and hallowed 
custom, developed a type of civilization in which conservatism 
prevailed. 

The salt of national preservation is the spirit of the fifth Sinai 
Commandment: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy 
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
thee." Hence the long life of the national fabrics of Asia and 
the steady persistence of the social type. The Asiatic empires 
are hoary with uncounted years. Many have been the con- 
querors of Persia, of Arabia, of Syria; yet how little is the 
type of life in those countries altered! Out of the change- 
less East come religion and wisdom. Only for a little while 

* " Great Pacific Power," — words used by President Arthur. 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 577 

does the soldier from the West disturb the student of the East. 
Again and again has she 

" Let the legions thunder past, 
Then howed in thought again." 

India, despite her strata of nations, her jungle of religions, her 
undergrowth of caste, is an ancient country. China is the ever- 
old empire that easily absorbs conquerors and dynasties, yet 
remains one, marvellous in unity. Corea claims a civilization as 
ancient as the Hebrews. The oldest dynasty in the world still 
reigns, in Ever-lasting, Great Japan ! 

The East, then, is stationary ; the West, progressive. Satisfac- 
tion and conservatism belong to the one ; restlessness and ad- 
vancement belong to the other. The former looks to the past ; 
the latter, to the future. Are not these elements worthy of 
admiration and imitation, in each ? Nay, more, will not the 
final glorious form of civilization reconcile and include both 
types, making one new ideal and consummation, in which all 
good in the past is preserved, and made the body in which the 
spirit of the future shall dwell ? 

Where do the two types meet and confront each other ? On 
what continent will the once divergent forces of history, having 
reached their utmost verge at either end of the Old World, 
unite, and form the new resultant ? 

Is it a wild di-eam to suggest that it may be the Almighty's 
purpose to give this mission of harmony and reconciliation to 
the United States of America? Her people now face both 
oceans, with the Old on the East, and the Oldest on the West. 
In the van of the progressive movement of civilization, our 
country alike greets the most ancient of nations, and the social 
fabric whose many centuries know no change. Further, she 
has gathered within her borders all colors, creeds, and minds. 
Providence has bidden America to train, educate, uplift, blend 
in fraternity, eastern and western, northern and southern human- 
ity. Hei*e, in these United States, is the grandest school of the 
brotherhood of man ! Here, the conscience and religion are 
free ! Here, the Fatherhood of God is best illustrated in church, 
in government, and in the human institutions which interpret 
Him ! In the old countries the people are feared or despised ; 
37 



578 PATRIOTIC READER. 

here, the people are trusted, made responsible, allowed to govern 
themselves. Here, in marvellous harmony, local forms of free- 
dom are blended with central power. 

Beyond her own borders, the mark which the chief nation of 
America leaves on the world is not that of war, conquest, or 
self-aggrandizement. Were her procedure that of selfish greed ; 
were her reliance for influence on army or navy; were her 
methods imperial, as of Eome, Eussia, Britain, we might dream, 
again, only of a political agglomeration, to rise and fall, as of 
old the robber nations and swollen empires rose and fell. Ag- 
gression, conquest, luxury, corruption, disease, decay, and death, 
have, in monotonous order, marked the careers of the proud 
nations of the past. They that have taken up the sword, for 
lust, have perished by the sword. 

In strong contrast with such careers is the mission of the 
United States. Has it not been " peace on earth, good-will to 
men" ? Is not our country worthy of the name of " The Great 
Pacific Power" ? Are not her emissaries, teachers, missionaries, 
physicians, engineers, — peaceful diplomatists ? Are not her in- 
stitutions abroad, hospitals, schools, colleges, instead of forts, 
arsenals, and the apparatus of conquest ? 

Other civilizations have wrought out ideas that have become 
the permanent property of the race. Egypt gave us architec- 
ture and agriculture; the Hebrews, religion; the Phoenicians, 
letters ; the Hindoos, philosophy ; the Arabs, mathematics ; the 
Chinese, filial reverence; the Greeks, beauty; the Eomans, law; 
the Germanic nations, personal liberty. 

America has demonstrated that self-government is possible to man. 
The United States declares that "man can rule himself." The 
people may be trusted! 

A study of the history of the United States, in her home de- 
velopment or foreign policy, gives solid ground of hope that her 
mission is to blend in one the two types of civilization, and thus 
realize the highest, the Christian ideal, under which the earth 
will be replenished and subdued, and history mount to the goal. 
America, by her amazing mastery of physical forces, will stimu- 
late Asia and Africa to win from the earth the almost untouched 
resources of two continents. The abundance of cotton, petro- 
leum, flour, machinery, and inventions, with the constant in- 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 579 

crease of our national wealth, has already powerfully impressed 
the people and governments of Asia. It has provoked thought, 
and stimulated them to develop the riches beneath their feet, 
and in air, and sea, and cosmos, in order to lift humanity out of 
the curse of poverty, to feed the hungry, to enjoy life in its higher 
possibilities, and to resist the conqueror. Thus the primal com- 
mand of the Creator is taught, to those who do not know, or 
have forgotten it. 

Higher than these lessons in material things are the quick- 
enings of mind. The influence of the American public school 
education, of the newspaper and periodical, of text-books in 
science, of popular and standard literature, borne over the earth 
by the vehicle of the English language, is already perceptible in 
Asia, from Japan to Syria. Ours is the one nation which does 
most for the people, and to us the awakening nations do and 
will look, for the best methods of educating the masses. Ours 
is the future world-language, already used, for speech or reading, 
by one-fourth, and in a century to be employed by two-thirds, of 
the people of the globe. Already the political impulse to re- 
form, the gentle currents that awaken new pulses of life in the 
effete systems of despotism, have been felt by the governments 
of Asia. Japan has cast off feudalism and out of irresponsible 
monarchy is passing into representative national organization ; 
while the old loyalty of her people has already become intelligent pa- 
triotism. The study of the political writings of American leaders, 
of their biographies, and of the Constitution of the United 
States, with the exemplars of "the Great Pacific Power," — 
Washington, after victory declining a crown, Grant, the leader 
of a million of men, yet the lover of peace and arbitration, 
— has already moved China's leaders. The influence of the 
successful American experiment of self-government, already 
working as leaven, is yet to move all Asia in the direction of 
government that shall secure " the greatest good to the greatest 
number." 

In a word, our hope and faith is, that America, by peaceful 
methods, and influences not material, will, more than all other 
forces in the civilizations of the past, be, under Divine Provi- 
dence, the means of Asia's renascence into liberty, self-govern- 
ment, and all that belongs to the elevation of man. The mission 



580 PATRIOTIC READER. 

of the United States is, to combine the Oriental ideas of con- 
servatism and stability with the Western thought of rapidity 
and progress ; making one new career for mankind, in which 
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man shall be the 
animating truths, and reverence for all that is tried and true 
in the past, blend harmoniously with the spirit of free inquiry, 
America being the " Great Pacific Power/' under God, to that 
glorious end. 

William Elliot Griffis. 



FUTURE GENERATIONS SUMMONED TO WITNESS 
OUR WORK. 

(From Mr. Webster's Address at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the bright 
and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which commenced the third 
century of the history of New England.) 

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion 
will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to 
behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, 
they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall 
stand here, a hundred yeara hence, to trace, through us, their 
descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now sur- 
veyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. 
We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments 
of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would antici- 
pate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount 
the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of 
that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the 
voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Eock of 
Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of 
the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. 

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then 
occupy our places some proof that we hold the blessings trans- 
mitted from our fathers in just estimation ; some proof of our 
attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and 
religious liberty ; some pi'oof of a sincere and ardent desire to 
promote everything which may enlarge the understandings and 



THE FUTURE OF AMERICA FORESHADOWED. 581 

improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance 
of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall 
know, at least, that we possessed affections which, running back- 
ward, and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have 
done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and 
meet them with cordial salutations ere yet they have arrived on 
the shore of Being. 

Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would hail you, 
as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we 
now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are 
passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. 
We bid you welcome to this pleasant laud of the Fathers. We 
bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of 
New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance 
which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of 
good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the 
treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome 
you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happi- 
ness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you 
to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immor- 
tal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting Truth ! 

Daniel Webster. 



AMERICA. 
(Words by Samuel Francis Smith. Air, "God save the King.") 

Mr country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain-side 

Let freedom ring. 

My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble free, 
Thy name I love ; 



582 PATRIOTIC READER. 

1 love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills ; 
My heart with rapture thrills 
Like that above. 



Let music swell the breeze, 
And ring from all the trees 

Sweet Freedom's song ; 
Let mortal tongues awake, 
Let all that breathe partake, 
Let rocks their silence break, 

The sound prolong. 

Our Fathers' God, to thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing ; 
Long may our land be bright 
With Freedom's holy light ; 
Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 



The original Preface requires no change. To public men and 
educators of every State and Territory who, in 1887, gave as- 
surance that the family and school would welcome an arrange- 
ment of patriotic sentiment such as was then outlined, sincere 
thanks are due. Less than one-fourth of the material suggested, 
and collated, could be used; but, as a rule, living authors have 
approved the form in which their papers or addresses have been 
adjusted to the space at disposal. Three, not contributors, but 
named in the Index, have special mention : Hon. JST. H. E. Dawson, 
U. S. Commissioner of Education, for active interest ; Rev. Dr. 
Crane, Morristown. New Jersey, Oriental scholar, and Rev. P. 
B. Davis, Hyde Park, Massachusetts, a careful Bible student and 
an experienced educator, for their advice as to Introductions, 
arrangement, and proof. 

Old Testament translations have had responsible approval. 
Dr. Geikie's "Hours with the Bible" supplied one selection, 
through the courtesy of James Potts & Co., of JSTew York, his 
publishers. Latin and Greek renderings are verified by Harper's 
Classical Library. The " Choice American Books" of Fords, 
Howard & Hulbert, including those of Henry Ward Beecher 
and Bryant's " Library of Poetry and Song," were also accessi- 
ble. Charles Scribner's Sons permitted a selection from Sidney 
Lanier's poems, published by them in the interest of Mrs. Mary 
Lanier. By special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
of Boston, such selections were permitted from the works of 
Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Bayard Taylor, and Bret Harte, 
published by them, as seemed to have historical and logical place 
in the volume. Other credits accompany context, or Index. 

Hon. Hemy Barnard, of Hartford, Connecticut, the Nestor 
of Educational Literature, is gratefully remembered for wise 
suggestions as the plan developed. 



584 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 

Some of the compilations, prior to 1860, are cited, in memory 
of those whose labors shaped American character during three 
generations : 

American Selections, 1796, Noah Webster: The Columbian Orator, 1797, and The 
American Preceptor, 1799, Caleb Bingham; The Speaker, 1803, William Enfield; The 
English Reader, 1807, 1823, 1831, Lindley Murray; The American Reader, 1810, Asa 
Lyman; The American Orator, 1811-1813, Increase Cooke; The Historical Reader, 182"., J. 
L. Blake ; The Classical Reader, 1826, Greenwood & Emerson ; Ebenezer Porters Analysis. 
1828; Studies in Poetry, 1830, Studies in Prose, George B. Cheever; The National Reader, 
1829, 1833, 1S34, John Pierpont ; The Popular Reader, 1834, Jason Olnev; The First Class 
Reader, 1834, B. D. Emerson; The United States Speaker, 1835, John E. Lovell; The 
National Preceptor, 1835, Ansel Phelps; The Rhetorical Reader, 1S35, Ebenezer Porter; 
The School Readers (a series'), 1S36, Charles W. Sanders; The American Elocutionist, 
1S44, William Russell ; The American Common School Reader, 1844, Goldsbury & Russell ; 
McGuflie's Rhetorical Guide, 1844 ;The Eclectic Series); The Elementary School Reader 
1846, Samuel J. Randall ; Town's Readers, 1848, Salem Town ; The Southern Speaker and 
Reader, 1848, William R. Babcock; The Mandeville Series, 1849. Henry Mandeville; 
Webb's Normal Reader, 1850, J. Russell Webb; Parker's School Readers (a series), 1851, 
Richard G. Parker ;• The National Speaker, 1851, Henry B. Magathlin ; The American 
Orator (with live hundred and sixty-seven fac-simile autographs), 1852. L. C. Munn; 
Book of Eloquence, 1852, Charles Dudley Warner; Sargent's Standard Speaker, 1852, 
Epes Sargent; Sargent's Standard Readers (a series), 1854, Epes Sargent; The American 
First Class Book, 1854. John Pierpont; The American School Reader, 1855, Asa Fltz; The 
American Comprehensive Reader, 1856, William D. Swan ; The Progressive Readers (a 
series), 1856, Town & Holbrook ; The National Readers (a series), 1857, Parker & Watson ; 
The North American Reader, 185S, David B. Tower ; The Progressive Speaker, 1858, 
Oliver Ellsworth ; Willson's Readers (chiefly scientific), 1859, Marcius Willson. 



Shortly after I860, the " old-time favorites," Biblical, classical, 
British, and American, gave place for such as commanded cur- 
rent, or sectional sympathy, — the conservative element still con- 
trolling a few. Thus, in 1S63, Hillard's Eeaders (Taintor, Mer- 
rill & Co., New York) ; in 1S65, The American Speaker, by that 
accomplished educator, John D. Philbrick (Thompson, Brown & 
Co., Boston) ; and in 1869, J. Madison Watson's Independent 
Series, outgrowth from Parker & Watson's National Series (A. 
S. Barnes & Co., New York), retained much which early com- 
pilers employed to inculcate a right estimate of the Cost of 
Human Liberty. 

Illustrated Series soon multiplied, with less space for the 
serious lessons of the fathers. To supplement these by an inde- 
pendent access to " old-time favorites" cannot discredit, but must 
rather enlarge their freedom in the choice and illustration of 
modern matter. 

While tribute is paid to such compilers as Webster the lexi- 
cographer, Olney the geographer, Murray ihe grammarian, and 
others cited, there should not be overlooked the historical fact 
that, as in some ancient guild, many of the school-book pub- 
lishers of to-day still represent the old publishers. 1>. Appleton 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 585 

& Co., A. S. Barnes & Co., and Harper Brothers, of New York ; 
Cowperthwaite & Co., J. B. Lippincott Co., and E. H. Butler & 
Co., of Philadelphia, have been related to them, and to educators, 
for half a century. In Boston, Phillips, Sampson & Co., Eobert 
S. Davis & Co., and Taggart & Thompson, are succeeded by Lee 
& Shepard; Leech, Shewell & Sanborn; and Thompson, Brown 
& Co. In New York, Mark H. Newman & Co., Ivison & Phin- 
ney, and Sheldon, Lamport & Blakeman, disappear; but Ivison, 
Blakeman & Co. still represent the Sanders Beaders, brought out 
in 1836, and Porter's Ehetorical Header of 1857 ; and Sheldon & 
Co. prosecute School Eeader work. In Philadelphia, De Silver's 
Sons perpetuate the Standard Speaker of Epes Sargent, and the 
old house of E. II. Butler & Co. is represented in the Butlers of 
to-day. In Cincinnati, Wm. B. Smith & Co., and Hinkle, Wilson 
& Co., re-live in Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co. and the works of 
W. B. MeGuffie ; and in California, the pioneer house of A. L. 
Bancroft & Co. finds development through H. H. Bancroft & Co. 
New and equally energetic publishers, North and South, many 
of them trained in the older houses, and representative of their 
pioneer work, are supplying reading material, as the demand 
increases. It is not an invidious, but a just sentiment which 
prompts a brief reference to the historical development of 
family and school reading; that development wdiich is to re- 
inforce American physical prosperity, through the attainment 
of a well-instructed, intelligent citizenship. 




Htde Park, Mass., October 19, 1888. 



A^^p^ 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



[Abbreviations are explained by words first used in full. Literary degrees are only 
specially used. Full names are generally given. Educational course, when known, is 
stated within parentheses. The term " soldier" includes various grades,— general officers 
being specified when so known to the public] 



Adams, John, orator, diplomatist ; Signer 
of the Declaration of American Indepen- 
dence; second President of the United 
States: born at Braintree, Massachusetts, 
1735; (Harvard College, now Harvard Uni- 
versity, Mass., 1755;) died July 4, 1826. 
Tribute to (Webster), p. 337; Colleagues of 
(Webster), p. 339; Supposed Speech of 
(Webster), p. 311. 

Adams, John auincy, orator, diplomatist, 
statesman; United States Senator, Mass., 
sixth Pres. U. S. ; b. Braintree, Mass., 1767 ; 
(Leyden, Netherlands, and Harv. Coll., 
1788;) d. Feb. 23. 1848, in the Capitol. "A 
Nation born in a Day," p. 136 ; " The Wash- 
ington and Franklin Memorials linked," 
p. 163 ; " Seventeen Years of Indepen- 
dence," p. 263; Death of (Holmes), p. 340. 

Adams, Samuel, orator; Sign. Dec. Ind. ; 
Governor Mass. ; b. Boston, 1722 ; (Harv. 
Coll.. 1740;) d. 1808. '-Independence ex- 
plained," p. 126; Tribute to (Curtis;, p. 329; 
Tribute to (Webster), p. 339. 

Addison. Joseph, essayist, author; b. Wilt- 
shire, England, 1672; (Oxford Univ.;) d. 
1719. " Virtuous Liberty is Priceless," from 
the Tragedy of " Cato." p. 58. 

Alexander, Charles W. See BRADSHAW. 

Alfred the Great, king of England; b. 
848; d. 901. Tribute to (Dickens), p. 317; 
Address to his men (Knowles), p. 394. 

Allston, Washington, artist, poet; b. Wac- 
camaw, S.C., 1779; (Harv. Coll., 1800;) d. 
1843. "America's Greeting to England," p. 
306. 

Ames, Fisher, orator, statesman ; b. Ded- 
ham, Mass., 1758; (Harv. Coll., 1774;) d. 
1808. "The Character of Brutus," p. 66; 
"Patriotism assures Public Faith," p. 241. 

Andrews, Israel Ward, Congregational 
minister; historical student, educator; 
Pres. Marietta Coll., Ohio: b. Danburv, 
Conn., 1815; (Williams Coll., Mass., 1837.) 
" The Ordinance of '--7," p. 526. 

Arndt, Ernst Moritz, political writer, 
poet; b. island <>( Ui'igen, Prussia, 1769; d. 
I860. " The German's Fatherland," p. 476. 

Bacon, Leonard Woolsey, Cong, mln., es- 
sayist, lecturer ; b. New Haven. Conn., 1830 ; 
(Yale Coll., now Yale Universitv, 1850.) 
"The Lesson of Groton Heights." p. 192; 
"The Lay of Groton Height." p. 158. 

Bancroft, George., diplomatist, scholar, 
historian ; b. Worcester, Mass.. 1800; (Harv. 
Coll., 1817.) "The Revolutionary Alarm." 
p. 117; "The Perry Monument dedicated," 



p. 181; "God in History," p. 208; "The 
Government of the People," p. 270. 

Barlow, Joel, diplomatist, poet; b. Read- 
ing, Conn., 1755; (Yale Coll., 1778;) d. 1812. 
" Address before the Connecticut Society 
of the Cincinnati," p. 262. 

Barnard, Henry, " The Nestor" of Ameri- 
can educational literature, and Father of 
the American graded school system; b. 
Hartford, Conn., 1811; (Yale Coll., 1830.) 
His aid acknowledged, p. 5s3. 

Barre. Colonel Isaac, soldier, member of 
British Parliament; b. Dublin, Ireland, 
1726 ; d. 1802. Defends the American Colo- 
nists, p. 97. 

Barry, It, J,, reputed author of song "St. 
Patrick's Day," p. 469. 

Barton, Bernard, of the Societv of Friends, 
"The Quaker Poet;" b. London, Eng.,1784; 
d. 1819. " Bruce and the Spider," p. 466. 

Beckwith, John Watrous, Protestant Epis- 
copal bishop, writer; b. Raleigh, N.C., 
1831; (Trinity Coll., Hartford, Conn., 1852.) 
" The Age adverse to War," p. 256. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, Cong, min., lec- 
turer, journalist, orator, author; b. Litch- 
field, Conn., 1813; (Amherst Coll., Mass., 
1834 ;) d. 1887. Tribute to Grant, p. 363. 

Beecher, Lyman, Cong, min., pulpit ora- 
tor, theologian ; b. New Haven, Conn., 1775; 
(Yale Coll., 1797 ;) d. 1869. " Moral Reform 
the Hope of the Age," p. 232. 

Blaine, James Gillespie, journalist, poli 
ticinn, statesman: 1). Washington Co., 
Penn., 1830. " Independence Day," p. 96; 
Tribute to Garfield, p. 361. 

Bolivar, Simon, Liberator of South Amer- 
ica; b. Caraccas, 1783 ; d. 1830, p. 311. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, soldier, Emperor 
of France ; b. Ajaccio, Corsica, 1769; d. at 
St. Helena, 1821. Did not inspire true pa- 
triotism, p. 311. 

Booth. Newton, lawyer, politician; Gov. 
California: U. S. Sen.. Cal. ; b. Salem, In- 
diana. 1825. "America the Colossus of 
the Nations," p. 289. 

Boutwell, Georg-e Sewall, lawyer, states- 
man ; Gov. Mass.; b. Brookline, Mass., 
1818. " Recollections of Grant." p. 572. 

Bozzaris, Marco, Greek patriot; b. Al- 
bania, Greene. 1790 ; killed in battle, 1823. 
Tribute to (Halleck), p. 345. 

Bradford, Colonel William, lawyer, sol- 
dier; b. Philadelphia, Penn., 1755; (Prince- 
ton Coll., N.J. ;) d. 1795. " Washington's 
Lament over Lafayette," p. 334. 

587 



588 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



Bradshaw, Wellesley, nom de gtierre for 
Charles VV. Alexander, Phila., Penn., 
journalist, poet; b. 1837. On his motion 
the Old Liberty Bell was sent to New Or- 
leans in 1884. "Bugles of Gettysburg; or, 
Wake (hem in peace to-day," p. 491. 

Bright, John, radical reformer, states- 
man ; b. near Rochdale, Eng., 1811. 
" America's Intrinsic Strength," p. 284. 

Brooke, Henry, dramatic poet ; l>. Kanta- 
van, Ireland, 1706; d. 1788. " Gustavus 
Vasa to the Swedes," p. 403. 

Brooks, Charles Timothy, Unitarian min., 
poet: b. Salem, Mass., 1813; (Harv. Coll. ; J 
d. 1883. " God Save the State," p. 531. 

Brown. Henry Armitt, lawyer, orator; b. 
l'hihi., [Vim., 1M1: (Vale Coll., 1865;) d. 
1878. Centennial Tribute at Burlington, 
N.J., p. 90. 

Bryant, "William Cullen, journalist, poet ; 
b. Cummington, Mass., 1794; (Williams 
Coll., Mass., 1813;) d. 1878. " The Antiquity 
of Freedom," p. 2; "America," p. 308; 
" The African Chief," p. 378. 

Burke, Edmund, orator, statesman; b. 
Dublin, Ireland, 1738; (Trin. Coll., Dub., 
1748;) d. 1797. "Despotism and Democ- 
racy incompatible," p. 219. 

Burns, Robert, poet; b. Ayr, Scotland, 
1758 ; d. 1796. " Address of Robert Bruce," 
p. 397. 

Byron, lord George Gordon Noel, poet, 
adventurer; b. London, Eng., 1790; d. 
1824. "The Destruction of Sennacherib," 
ji. 25; Tribute to Washington (quoted by 
Choate), p. 161 ; -'Great Examples," p. 310. 
Caesar, Julius, soldier, orator, dictator; 
h. Lome. Daly, loo b.c. ; assassinated by 
Brutus. It B.C. "Death of" (Shakespeare), 
p. <;>; ■•Crosses the Rubicon" (Knowles), 
p. 67. 

Caius Canuleius, Roman Tribune (about 
443 B.C.). Maintains the rights of the ple- 
beians, p. 41. 

Caius Gracchus, Roman statesman, ora- 
tor; 1). 154 or 159 B.C. ; murdered, 121 B.C. 
Maintains the rights of the people, p. 47, 
and note. 

Calhoun, John Caldwell, politician, states- 
man ; U.S. Sen., S.C. ; Vice-Pres. U.S.; 
(Yale Coll.. 1804:) b. Abbeville Dist., S.C. 
178* ; d. 1S50. "True Liberty measured by 
ire." p. 218; "Internal Improve- 
ment a Bond of Union," p. 302; Tribute 
to (Webster), p. 347; Tribute to (Lamar), p. 
496. 

Campbell, Thomas, poet; b. Glasgow, 
Scotland, 1777; d. 1S41. "The Downfall 
of Poland," p. 869; "What's Hallowed 
Ground?" p. 432 ; "The Soldier's Dream," 
p. 461 ; " Son- of the Creeks," p. 474. 

Carrinfjton, Henry Beebee, lawyer, sol- 
dier, author ; b. Wallingford, Conn., 1824: 
(Vale Coll., 1845.) "Introductions," and 
contents not otherwise credited. 

Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, patriot, 

i ; Sign. Dec. Ind. ; U. S. Sen., 

Md.; b. Annapolis, Md., 1737: (Paris and 

London ;) d. 1832. Tribute to (Lippard), p. 

841. 

Cass, General Lewis, lawyer, soldier. 
statesman; Gov. Mich.; U. S. Sen., Mich. ; 
b. Exeter, NIL. 1782; d. 1866. "The Old 
World and the New," p. 254. 
Catiline, Lucius Sergius, Roman dema- 
nd traitor; b. 108 B.C.; killed 62 



B.C. Denounced by Cicero, p. 55 ; His sup- 
posed Defiance (Croly), p. 56. 

Cato, Marcus Portius, patriot, philoso- 
pher ; b. Utica, Italy, 95 B.C. ; d. 46 B.C. 
" Industry and Integrity the Hope of the 
State," p. 53. 

Channing, William Ellery, Unit, mill.; 
writer, orator; b. Newport, R.I., 1780; 
(Harv. Coll., 1797;) d. 1842. "National 
Distinction depends upon Virtue," p. 230. 

Chapin, Edwin Hubbell, Uni versalist mill., 
pulpit orator, writer; b. Washington Co., 
N.Y., 1814 ; d. 1880. " Heroes and Martyrs 
to be honored," p. 245. 

Child, Lydia Maria (vie Francis), writer; 
b. Medford, Mass., ]802; d. 1880. Supposed 
Speech of the Patriot James Otis (taken 
from her novel "The Rebels"), p. 102. 

Choate, Rufus, lawyer, scholar, advocate; 
U. S. Sen., Mass.: b. Ipswich, Mass. (now 
Essex), 1799: (Dartmouth Coll., X. II. ,1819;) 
d. 1858. " The Birthday of Washington," 
p. 160. 

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, orator, statesman ; 
b. 106 B.C.; d. 48B.C. Denounces Catiline, 
p. 55. 

Clay, Henry, lawyer, orator, statesman; 
Speaker U. S. House of Rep.; U. S. Sen., 
Ky.; b. Hanover Co., Va., 1777; d. 1852. 
"Patriotism inculcates Public Virtue." p. 
240; Tribute to (Crittenden), p. 348; Sym- 
pathy with Ireland, p. 367. 

Cleveland, Stephen Grover, lawyer, poli- 
tician; Gov. N.Y. ; twenty-second Pres. 
U. S.; b. Caldwell. N.J., 1837. Address at 
Constitutional Centennial, 1887, p. 518. 

Cooke, Increase, author, publisher; b. 
Wallingford. Conn., 1773; (Yale Coll., 1793;) 
d. 1814. Published "American Orator," 
dedicated to the Youth of America. Octo- 
ber 19. 1811, the anniversary day of Wash- 
ington's visit to Wallingford. " Patriotism 
Broad as Humanity," p. 243. 

Copp, John Joseph, lawyer; b. Groton, 
Conn., 1810; (Amherst Coll.. Mass., I860;) 
Address at Groton Heights Centennial, p. 
189. 

Corday, Charlotte, (d'Armans,) patriotic 
enthusiast; b. Normandy. France. 1768; 
executed 1793. "Last Words to France," 
p. 407, and note. 

Cornwall, Barry. See PROCTER, BRYAN 
Wai.i.kk. 

Cowper, William, poet; b. Hertfordshire. 
Eiur., 1731 ; d. 1800. " Address to Liberty,'' 
p. 127. 

Crafts, Wilbur Fisk. Meth. Epis. min.; 
religious writer; b. Fryeburg, Me.. 1850: 
(Wesleyan Univ.. Middletown, Conn.) 
"Two Centuries from the Landing of the 
Pilgrims," p. 77. 

Crane, Oliver, Presb. min.. Oriental 
scholar, author, poet; b. West Bloomfield 
(now Montclair), N.J.. 1822; (Yale Coll., 
1845.) His aid in this work acknowledged 
by his classmate, p, 588. 

'Crawford. Francis Marion, novelist, poet; 
b. Italy. 1845. '•National Hymn," p. 523. 
Crittenden. John Jordan, lawyer, States- 
man; Gov. Ky.; U.S. Sen. Ky.; b. Wood- 
ford Co., Ky., 1787; d. 1863. Tribute to 
Clay. p. 848. 

Croly, George, Eng. Church rector, orator, 
author, poet; b. Dublin, Ireland, 1780; d. 
1860. "Heath of Leonidas," p. 86 ; Cati- 
line's supposed Defiance, p. 56. 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



589 



Curran, John Philpot, lawyer, orator ; b. 
Newmarket, near Cork, Ireland, 1750; d. 
1817. "Religious Distinctions behind the 
Age," p. 410. 

Curtis, George William, journalist, 
scholar, traveller, author; b. Providence, 
R.I.. 1824. -'The Saratoga Battle Lesson," 
p. 185; "Patriotism is Unselfish," p 237; 
Tribute to Samuel Adams, p. 329; "The 
Great Question settled," p. 492. 

Cutter, George Washington, poet; b. Ken- 
tucky, 1814 ; d. 1865. " E Pluribus Unum," 
p. 4 Hi. 

Davis, Perley Bacon, Cong, min., educa- 
tor, Biblical scholar, preacher; b. New 
Ipswich, N.H., 1832; (Andover Sem., Dart- 
mouth, and Middlebury, MA.) Valuable 
aid recognized in preparation of this vol- 
ume, p. 583. 

Dawson, Nathaniel H. R,, lawyer, soldier, 
educator, legislator; U. S. Comr. Ed., Wash- 
ington, D.C.; b. Charleston, S.C., 1849; (St. 
Joseph's Coll., Mobile, Ala.) His cordial 
aid acknowledged, p. 583. 

Deborah, Hebrew prophetess, judge, and 
leader, about 1285 B.C. Song of Triumph, 
p. 16. 

De Lisle, Claude Joseph Rouget, soldier, 
musician, poet; b. at Lons-le-Saulnier, 
France, 1760; d. 1836. " Marseilles Hymn," 
p. 470. 

Demosthenes, orator; b. near Athens, 
Greece, 383-385 B.C.; d. 322 B.C. "Popular 
Vigilance the Bulwark of the Constitu- 
tion." p. 45. 

De Peyster, General John Watts, soldier, 
military critic, poet: b. New York, 1821; 
(Columbia Coll.) " The Surrender of Bur- 
goyne," extract from Centennial poem, 
p. 205. 

De Tocqueville. See Tocqueville, and 
p. 220. 

Devens, General Charles, lawyer, soldier, 
statesman, jurist; b. Charlestown, Mass., 
1820. " No Conflict now," p. 494. 

Dewey, Orville, Unit, min., journalist ; b. 
Sheffield, Mass.. 1794; (Williams Coll., 
1814;) d. 1867. " Liberty a Responsibility," 
p. 214 ; " The Nobility of Labor," p. 246. 

Dickens, Charles, journalist novelist; b. 
Land port, Eng., 1812; d. 1870. Tribute to 
Alfred the Great, p. 317. 

Dickerman, Lysander. Cong, mill., Egyp- 
tologist, lecturer ; b. West Bridgewater, 
Mass., 1825; (Brown Univ., R.I.j "Loyalty 
to Country," p. 6; " Hvmu to Ammon Ra," 
p. 7. 

Dimitry, Charles, novelist, poet: b. Wash- 
ington, D.C.. 1838. " Viva Italia," p. 472. 

Doane, George Washington, Prot. Epis. 
bish., theologian, poet; b. Trenton, N.J., 
1799 ; d. 1859. Tribute to Taylor, p. 357. 

Drake, Charles Daniel, lawyer, jurist; 
U. S. Sen., Mo.; b. Cincinnati, O., 1811. 
"The Nature of the Union," p. 272. 

Drake, Joseph Rodman, poet; b. New 
York, 1795; (Columbia Coll. ;) d. 1820. "The 
American Flag," p. 441. 

Draper. Andrew S., educator, Supt. Pub. 
Ins., New York : b. Westford, Otsego Co., 
N.Y.18J8. "Patriotism in the Schools," 
p. 532. 

Duganne, Augustine Joseph Hinckley, 
philosophical writer, poet ; b. Boston, 1828; 
d. 1884. " Harvest and Vintage," p iss. 
Duponceau, Peter S., critical writer; b. 



France, 1760 ; d. 1844. Tribute to Penn, p. 
324. 

Dwight, Timothy, Cong, min., theolo- 
gian, author; Pres. Yale Coll.; b. 1752; 
(Yale Coll., 1769;) d. 1817. "Columbia," 
(a poem), p. 266; " Moses the First Libera- 
tor," p. 314. 

Edwards, Richard, Cong, min., educator; 
Supt. Pub. Ins., Illinois; b. Cardiganshire, 
Wales, 1822; (Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., 
Troy, N.Y.) " The Problem of To-Day ," p. 

Eichberg, Philipine (now Mrs. J. B. KING, 
Boston); b. Geneva, Switzerland. "To 
Thee, O Country," written at the age of 
fifteen, p. 553. 

Emmet, Robert, orator, patriot ; b. Cork, 
Ireland, 1780 ; d. 1803. Vindicated, p. 412. 
Evarts, William Maxwell, lawyer, orator; 
U. S. Sen., N.Y. ; b. Boston, Mass., 1818; 
(Yale Coll., 1837.) Delivered Centennial 
Oration. 1876, at Philadelphia, p. 516. 

Everett, Edward, onator, scholar, states- 
man ; U. S. Sen-, Mass. ; b. Dorchester, 
Mass., 1792; (Harv. Coll., 1811;) d. 1865. 
"The Pilgrims." p. 72; "The Memory of 
Washington," p. 154; "Liberty defined," p. 
207; "The Age of Revolutions," p. 209; 
"Temperance Reform demanded," p. 234; 
" Great Examples," p. 309. 

Ewing, Thomas, lawyer, orator, states- 
man ; U. S. Sen., Ohio; b. Ohio Co., Va., 
1791; (Ohio Univ., 1813;) d. 1871. "The 
American Patriot's Hope," p. 291. 

Ferry, Thomas White, politician, orator; 
U. S. Sen., Mich.; Pres. U. S. Sen., 1876; b. 
Mackinaw. Mich., 1827. Presided at Cen- 
tennial Exercises, July 4, 1.S76, p. 513. 

Finch, Francis Miles, lawyer, poet; b. 
Ithaca, NY. 1827; (Yale. 1849). Tribute to 
Nathan Hale (historical poem), p. 456; 
" The Blue and the Gray," p. 508. 

Fleming, William Henry, educator, law- 
yer; b. Augusta, Ga.. 1856; (Univ. Ga., 1875; 
tutor at same.) " Memorial Address, 1885," 
extract, p. 488. 

Fox, Charles James, orator, statesman; 
b. London, Eng., 1749; (Oxford Univ., 
1766 ;) d. 1806. " Continued War with 
America is Folly," p. 133. 

Franklin, Benjamin, diplomatist, discov- 
erer in phvsics. statesman : b. Boston, 1706; 
d. 1790. "The Federal Constitution," p. 273; 
Tribute to (Mirabeau), p. 326; "Epigrams 
of Poor Richard," p. 327. 

Galgacus (Calgacus), Caledonian general, 
A.D. 84. Address to his Troops (Tacitus), p. 
393. 

Gates, Merrill Edward, educator, writer; 
Pres. Rutgers Coll., N.J. ; b. Warsaw, N.Y., 
1848; (Rochester Univ., N.Y.) " The Nine- 
teenth Century shapes the Twentieth," 
p. 551. 

Garaeld, Gen. James Abram, Min. Church 
of the Disciples, soldier, politician, legis- 
lator; twentieth Pres. IT. S. ; b. Orange, O., 
1831 ; (Williams Coll., Mass., 1X56:) assassi- 
nated, July 2, 1881 : d. Sept. 19, 1881. Trib- 
ute to 'Bla'inei p. 361. 

Geikie, Cunningham, Presb. min , Biblical 
scholar, author; b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 
1826; (Univ. Ed.) " The Equality of Man," 
p. 4. 

Gibbons, James, Roman Catholic Arch- 
bishop, Vicar Apostolic. Cardinal , b. Bal- 
timore, 1834 ; (Bait. Colleges and St. Mary's 



590 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



Seminary.) Closes the Constitutional Cen- 
tennial with prayer, p. 524. 

Gideon, Hebrew general, judge, deliv- 
erer ; about 1245 B.C. Delivers his country, 
but declines a crown, p. 21. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, financier, ora- 
tor, statesman; b. Liverpool, Eng., 1809. 
" Home Rule for Ireland," p. 375. 

Gordon, General John Brown, lawyer, sol- 
dier, statesman ; Gov. Ga^; U. S. Sen., Ga. ; 
b. Upson Co., Ga., 1832. The Jasper Mon- 
ument Unveiled, p. 200; "Gettysburg a 
Mecca for the Blue and the Gray," p. 490. 

Gracchus, Caius. See Caius Gracchus, 
and p. 47. 

Graham, Sylvester, Presb. min., reformer, 
writer; b. Suffield, Conn., 1794; d. 1851. 
"The Hebrew Jubilee," p. 15. 

Grant, General Ulysses Simpson, soldier; 
Commanding General U.S.A.; eighteenth 
Pres. U.S.; b. Point Pleasant, O., 1822; 
(U. S. Mil. Acad., West Point, 1843;) d. 1885. 
Tribute to (Beecher),.p. 363. 

Griffis, William Elliot, Dominie Reformed 
(Dutch) Church. 1877-1886; Cong, min., 
Boston; educator, historical writer, Orien- 
talist; b. Phila., Penn., 1843; (Rutgers Coll., 
N.J., 1869.) " America and Asia in the 
Future," p. 576. 

Gurley, Phineas Dinsmore, Presb. min.; 
b. Hamilton, N.Y., 1816; (Union Coll., N.Y., 
1837 ;) d. 1868. Tribute to Lincoln, p. 358. 

Hale, Edward Everett, Unit, min., essay- 
ist, lecturer, journalist, author; b. Boston, 
Mass., 1822; (Harv. Coll., 1839.) Tribute to 
Nathan Hale, p. 332. 

Hale, Captain Nathan, soldier, patriot; b. 
Coventry, Conn., 1755; (Yale Coll.. 1773;) 
executed by the British, 1776. Tribute to 
(Hale), p. 332; Tribute in verse (Finch), p. 
456 (by the courtesv of Ivison, Blakeman 
& Co., from Swintoii's Fifth Reader). 

Hall, Caleb G., farmer, founder of vari- 
ous prizes for proficiency in the knowl- 
edge of the Constitution and patriotic 
historical utterances; b. Pittsfield (New 
Berlin). Otsego Co., N.Y., 1824. See note 
on p. 554. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, journalist, poet; b. 
Guilford, Conn., 1790; d. 1867. Tribute to 
Marco Bozzaris, p. 345. 

Hamilton, Colonel Alexander, soldier, 
financier, statesman ; b. in the West In- 
dies, 1757; d. 1804. Tribute to (Hawks), p. 
335. 

Harrison, General William Henry, sol- 
dier; Gov. Indiana Ter.; U. S. Sen.. O. ; 
ninth Pres. U. S. ; b. Charles City Co., Va., 
1773; d. 1841. Tribute to (Stephens), p. 
355. 

Harte, Francis Bret, journalist, poet; b. 
Albanv, N.Y., 1839. " Caldwell of Spring- 
field" (British raid of June 6, 1780), p. 457. 

Hawks, Francis Lister, Prot. Epis. bishop, 
journalist, author; b. New- Berne, N.C., 
1798; (Univ. N.C., 1866.) Tribute to Hamil- 
ton and Jay. p. 335. 

Hawley, General Joseph Roswell, journal- 
ist, lawyer, soldier; Gov. Conn. ; U. S. Sen., 
Conn.; b. Stewartville, N.C., 1826; (Hamil- 
ton Coll., N.Y., 1847;) Pres. Centennial 
Com., pp. 511-513. 

Hayne, Robert Young, lawyer, orator; 
Gov. S.C. : U. S. Sen., S.C. ; b. St. Paul's, 
S.C., 1781; d. 1840. "The South in the 
Revolution," p. 305. 



Hemans, Felicia Dorothea (nee Browne), 
poetess; b. Liverpool, Eng., 1784; d. 1835. 
"The Spartans' March," p. 35; "The 
Greeks' Return from Battle," p. 38; "For 
the Strength of the Hills we bless Thee, 
our God, our Fathers' God," p. 463. 

Henry, Caleb Sprague, Prot. Epis. min., 
educator, author ; b. Rutland, Mass., 1804 ; 
(Dartmouth Coll., N.H.;) d. 1884. "The 
Development of our Country," p. 562. 

Henry, Patrick, orator, statesman ; Gov. 
Va.; b. Studley. Hanover Co., Va., 1736; d. 
1799. "Appeal to Arms, 1775," p. 109. 

Henry V., king of England; b. Mon- 
mouth, Eng., 13S8 ; d. 1422. Address to his 
Troops (Shakespeare), p. 402. 

Herford, Brooke, Unit, min., Boston, 
preacher, author; b. Manchester, Eng., 
1830; (Manchester New Coll.) "The 
Patriotic Maccabees," p. 27. 

Herodotus, Greek historian, 484 B.C. 
Quotes Otares in favor of a Republic, p. 
31. 

Hillard, George Stillman, lawyer, orator, 
writer; b. Machias, Me., 1808; (Harv. Coll., 
1828:) d. 1879. "The Destiny of our Re- 
public," p. 565. 

Hoar, George Frisbie, lawyer, author, 
statesman; U. S. Sen., Mass.; b. Concord, 
Mass., 1826; (Harv. Coll., 1846.) "Centen- 
nial of Ordinance of 1787," p. 528. 

Hogg, Alexander, educator; Supt. Schools, 
Fort Worth, Texas ; b. Yorktown, Va., 1830 ; 
(Randolph-Macon Coll., Va., 1854.) "The 
Union a Geographical Necessity," p. 295. 

Holden, William Woods, journalist, 
scholar; Gov. N.C.; b. Orange Co., N.C., 

1818. "A Happy Country," p. 566 (from 
the " North Carolina Speaker" of Alfred 
Williams & Co.) 

Holmes, Isaac Edward, lawyer, politician, 
orator; b. Charleston, S.C, 1796; d. 1867. 
Tribute to John Quincy Adams, p. 340. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, poet, author, wit, 
scholar; b. Cambridge, Muss., 1809; (Harv. 
Coll., 1829.) "Old Ironsides," p. 445; 
"Union and Liberty," p. 465; "Welcome 
to the Nations," p. 513 ; " New ' Hail Colum- 
bia.' " p. 522. 

Homer, Greek poet, flourished about 968 
B.C. "The Best Omen our Country's 
Cause" (original translation from the 
" Iliad"), p. 32. 

Hopkinson, Joseph, lawyer, jurist; b. 
Phila., Penn., 1770; (Univ. Penn. ;) d. 1842. 
" Hail Columbia," p. 436. 

Howe, Julia \nec Ward), poetess ; b. N.Y., 

1819. " Battle-Hymn of the Republic," p. 
448. 

Howland, George, educator, Supt. Schools, 
Chicago, 111.; b. Conway, Franklin Co., 
Mass., 1824; (Amherst Coll., Mass., 1850.) 
" Washington's Birthday," p. 161. 

Hugo, Victor Marie, poet, novelist, writer ; 
b. Besancon, France, 1802; d. 1885. "Rome 
and Carthage locked in Strife," p. 49 ; " The 
United States of Europe," p. 252. 

Hunt, Mary Hannah (nee Hanchett), 
educator, lecturer, Supt. Sci. Temperance 
Instruction of the W. C. T. U.; (Patapsco 
Inst., Md., and Prof. Nat. Sci. in same ;) b. 
South Canaan, Conn., 1830. " Temperance 
Education the Patriot's Ally," p. 549. 

Jackson, General Andrew, lawyer, soldier, 
statesman; U. S., Sen., Tenn.; seventh 
Pres. U. S. ; b. Waxhaw settlement, S.C, 



BIOGEAPHICAL INDEX. 



591 



1767; d. 1845. "Union linked with Lib- 
erty," p. 297. 

Jay, John (of Huguenot stock 1 ), diploma- 
tist, statesman, jurist: Gov. N.Y. ; b. N.Y., 
1745; (King's— now Columbia— Coll., 1764;) 
d. 1829. " Necessity of the Union," p. 271 ; 
Tribute to (Hawks), p. 335. 

Jefferson, Thomas, diplomatist, political 
writer, statesman ; Sign. Dec. Ind. ; Gov. 
Va. ; third Pres. U.S.; b. Shadvvell, Va., 
1743; d. July 4, 1826. "A Republic the 
Strongest Government," p. 275; Tribute to 
(Webster), p. 337. 

Job, an ancient patriarch (Book of Job). 
" The Patriot Citizen's Challenge," p. 24. 

Johnson, Reverdy, lawyer, diplomatist, 
legal writer; U. S. Sen., Md. ; b. Annapolis, 
Md.,1796; (St. John's Coll., Md. ;) d. 1876. 
'• Liberty restrained by Law," p. 367. 

Jones, Sir William, Orientalist, scholar, 
author; b. London, Eng., 1746; (Oxford 
Univ.;) d. 1794. "What constitutes a 
State ?" p. 211. 

Kasson, John Adams, diplomatist, legis- 
lator; b. Burlington, Vt., 1822. Opening 
Address at the Constitutional Centennial, 
Phila., 1887, p. 517. 

Keller, Matthias, musician : b. Wurtem- 
berg, Germany, 1813; d. Boston, 1875. 
"American Hymn," p. 448. 

Kellogg, Elijah, Cong, min., lecturer, 
author; b. Portland, Me., 1813; (Bowdoin 
Coll.. 1840.) "Regulus before the Senate 
of Carthage," p. 389; "Spartacus to the 
Gladiators," p. 391. 

Key, Francis Scott, lawyer, jurist, poet ; 
b. Frederick Co., Md., 1779 ; d. 1843. " The 
Star-Spangled Banner," p. 413. 

King, Charles, journalist, scholar; Pres. 
Columbia Coll., N.Y. ; b. N.Y., 1789; d. 1867. 
'• The Future of the United States," p. 564. 

Kirkland, John Thornton, Cong, min., 
scholar, author ; Pres. Harv. Coll. ; b. Little 
Falls, N.Y., 1770 ; (Harv. Coll., 1789 ;) d. 1840. 
" True Patriotism embraces Mankind," p. 
238. 

Knowles, James Sheridan, dramatist, 
actor; b. Cork, Ireland, 1784; d. 1862. 
" Csesar crossing the Rubicon," p. 67; 
"Alfred the Great to his Men," p. 394. 

Knox, William, writer, poet; b. Rox- 
burgh, Scotland, 1789, d. 1825. "Oh, why 
should the Spirit of Mortal be proud ?" p. 
359. 

Kb'rner, Karl Theodor, soldier, poet; b. 
Dresden, Saxony, 1781; (Leipsic and Ber- 
lin ;) d. 1813. " German Battle-Prayer," p. 
479 ; " Prussian Battle-Hymn," p. 480. 

Kossuth, Louis, orator, statesman, pa- 
triot; b. Monok, Hungary, 1802. "Hero- 
ism of the Hungarian People," p. 371. 

Lamar, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, law- 
yer, statesman, jurist; b. Putnam Co., Ga., 
1825; (Emory Coll., Ga,, 1815.) Tribute t> 
Sumner, p. 353; " The Moral Force of the 
Nineteenth Century ends Slavery," p. 496. 

Lamartine, de, Alphonse, poet, orator, his- 
torian; b. Macon. France, 1792; (Coll. of 
Belley ;) d. 1869. " The Last Words of Char- 
lotte Cordav," p. 408. 

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (Mrs. McLean), 
poetess; b. near London, 1802; d. 1839. 
" Crescentius," p. 462. 

Landor, Walter Savage, author; b. Ipsley 
Court, Warwickshire, Eng., 1775; d. 1864. 
" Pericles and Aspasia," p. 42. 



Lanier, Sidney, lawyer, soldier, poet ; b. 
Macon, Ga., 1812; (Oglethorpe Coll., Ga., 
1860 ;) d. 1881. " The Meditations of Colum- 
bia, 1876," p. 511. 

Lasker, Raphael, Rabbi, educator, Tal- 
mudist; b. Zirke, Prussia, 1835; (Gleiwitz 
and Giessen, Germany.) "The Memorial 
Day of the Exodus," p. 8. 

Lathrop, John, Cong, min., scholar; b. 
Norwich, Conn., 1740; (Princeton Gull., 
N.J., 1763;) d. 1816. Address, July 4, 1796, 
p. 265. 

Lee, Richard Henry, orator, statesman; 
Sign. Dec. Ind.; b. Westmoreland Co., Va., 
1732; d. 1794. "Independence a Solemn 
Duty," p. 124. 

Legare. Hugh Swinton, scholar, lawyer, 
writer, statesman ; b. Charleston, S.C., 1797 ; 
(S.C. Coll., 1815; Paris, Edinburgh ;) d. 1843. 
" Our Country One Grand Poem," p. 301. 

Lincoln, Abraham, lawyer, politician, 
statesman ; sixteenth Pres. U. S. ; b. Har- 
din Co., Ky., Feb. 12, 1809; assassinated 
April 14. d. April 15, 1865. Tribute to (Gur- 
lev), p. 358; His favorite poem, p. 359; At 
Gettysburg, p. 486; Tribute to (Stephens), 
p. 499. 

Lippard, George, author, novelist ; b. Yel- 
low Springs, Penn., 1822; d. 1851. "Charles 
Carroll of Carrollton, the Last of the 
Signers," p. 341. 

Logan, Cavuga chief; b. 1725; d. 1780. 
Story of (Jefferson), p. 404. 

Long, John Davis, lawyer, orator, states- 
man ; Gov. Mass.; b. Bu'ckfield, Me., 1838; 
(Harv. Coll., 1857.) Tribute to Webster, p. 
350. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, scholar, 
poet; b. Portland, Me., 1807; (Bowdoin 
Coll., 1825 ;) d. 1882. " Paul Revere's Ride," 
p. 112; " Pulaski's Banner," p. 455. 

Lunt, William Parsons. Unit, min., writer, 
poet; b. Newburyport, Mass., 1805; d. 1857. 
" The Ship of State," p. 304. 

Lyon, James Gilbourne, clerg. Eng. 
Church ; b. England ; d. Penn., 1868. " The 
Triumphs of our Language," p. 558. 

Maccabaeus, Mattathias, and sons. " The 
Patriotism of" (Herford), p. 27. 

Madison, James, political writer, states- 
man ; fourth Pres. U. S. ; b. King George 
Co., Va., 1751; (Princeton Coll., 1771;) d. 
1836. " The American Experiment," p. 269. 
Marion, General Francis, soldier, patriot; 
b. S.C, 1732 ; d. 1795. Address on Suppress- 
ing Mutiny, p. 406 ; " Our Schools." p. 535. 
Marias, Caius, Roman general ; b. near 
Arpinum, Italy, 157 B.C. "Merit before 
Birth," p. 50. 

Mason, Jonathan, lawyer, statesman; b. 
Boston, 1752 ; U. S. Sen., Mass. ; (New Jer- 
sey Coll. ;) d. 1831. " America seated among 
the Nations," p. 136. 

Mazzini, Giuseppe, Italian patriot; b. 
Genoa, 1S08 ; d. 1872. Address, p. 414. 

McDuffie, George, lawver, politician ; Gov. 
S.C. ; U. S. Sen., S.C. ; b. Columbia Co., Ga., 
1788; d. 1851. "American Liberty on a 
Permanent Basis," p. 280. 

McGinn, Robert Cooper, educator, Md. ; 
b. Ireland, 1832. " The Public Schools are 
scattered o'er My Maryland," p. 634. (In 
imitation of "My Maryland," written by 
James Ryder Randall, journalist and poet, 
of the Baltimore American.) 
McLean, John, lawyer, jurist, statesman ; 



592 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



b. Morris Co., N.J., 1785; d. 1861. "Moral 
Power the Mightiest," p. 231. 

McLellan, Isaac, Jr., lawyer, journalist; 
b. Portland, Me., 1806; (Bowdoin Coll., 
18'J6j '• New England's Dead," p 80. 

Meagher, General Thomas Francis, Irish 

fatriot, American soldier; b. Waterford, 
relnnd, 18:28; d. 1807. "Treason dis- 
avowed," p. 417. 

Meek, Alexander Beaufort, poet, historical 
writer, jurist; b. Charleston, S.C., 1814; d. 
ISO;"). -The Red Men of Alabama," p. 381; 
"The Land of the South," p. 451. 

Mellen, Grenville, poet; b. Biddeford, 
Me.. 1799; (Harv. Coll., 1818;) d. 1841. "In 
Memory of the Pilgrims," p. 78. 

Mtrcier, Louis Sebastien. dramatic poet; 
b. Paris, Frame, 1740; d. 1814. "Delayed 
Liberty," p. 227. 

Miller, Samuel Freeman, lawyer, jurist ; 
b. Richmond. Ky., 1816; [Transylvania 
Univ., Ky., 1888 ) Oration at Constitutional 
Centennial, 1'hila., 1887, p. 519. 

IV ilton, John, patriot, poet, scholar, 
author; b. London, Eng.. 1608; d. 1674. 
"True Glory." p. 208; "Gives Eyesight to 
Liberty" (Sprague). p. 319. 

Mirabeau, de, Honore Gabriel Riquetti, 
versatile writer, orator, statesman; b. Bi- 
gnon. near Nemours, France, 1749; d. 1791. 
Tribute to Franklin, p. 326. 

Mitford, Mary Ru-sell, ready writer; b. 
Hampshire. Eng., 1786; d. 1855. "Rienzi 
to the Romans" (from the drama of 
" Rienzi"), p. 398. 

Montgomery, James, poet, b. Ayrshire, 
Scotland. 1771; d. 18G4. "The Patriot's 
Elysium," p. 423. 

Moragne, Colonel William Cain (of Hu- 
guenot stuck), lawver, soldier, scholar; b. 
Abbeville Co, S.C., 1816; (France and Ger- 
many ;) d. 1862. "The Huguenot Exodus," 
p. 87; " Landing of the Huguenots," p. 89. 
Morris, George (P.) Empson. journalist, 
poet; b. Philadelphia, Penn., 1802; d. 1864. 
"The Rock of the Pilgrims," p. S3. 

Moses, heir-apparent to throne of Egypt, 
Hebrew scholar, statesman, jurist, general ; 
b. about 1570 b.c , lived one hundred and 
twenty years, delivered his people. " Song 
of Triumph," p. 10; "In Sight of the 
Promised Land (Peabody). p. 12; "The 
First Liberator" i Dwightl p 314. 

Motley. John Lothrop, historian; b. Dor- 
chester, Mass.. 1814; (Harv. Coll., 1831 ;) d 
1877. " William the Silent," p. 818. 

Mowry. William Augustus, educator, sol- 
dier, educational journalist, author; b. 
Uxbridge, Mass, 1829; (Brown Univ.. R.I., 
1858.1 " Our Territorial Growth has marked 
our Duly ami Destiny," p. 573. 

Newell. McFadden Alexander, educator, 
Snpt. Pub. Ins., Md. ; h Belfast, Ireland, 
1824. " The Sphere of our Public Schools," 
p, 533. 

O'Brien. William, orator, journalist: b. 
Mallow. Ireland, 1852; (Queen's Coll.. Cork ; 
Clovne Diocesan Coll.j "Ireland near the 
Goal hssS." p. 376. 

O'Connell. Daniel, orator, patriot; b. 
Cahirciveen, Kerry, Ireland, 1775 ; d. 1847. 
"Justice to Ireland," p. 415; Tribute to 
(Phillips), p. 343. 

O'Reilly. John Boyle, Irish patriot, Amer- 
ican journalist, poet; b. at Castle Dowth, 
County Meath, 1844. " Resurgite," p. 418. 



Osgood, Frances {nie Sargent), poetess; 
b. Boston. 1812; d. 1850. "Labor is Wor- 
ship," p. 217. 

Otis, James, patriot, orator, statesman; 
b. West Barnstable, Mass., 1725; (Harv. 
Coll., 1743;) d. 1783. Supposed speech 
against England (Child), p. 102 and con- 
text. 

Patterson, James Willis, legislator, ora- 
tor, educator; U. S. Sen., N.H.; Supt. Pub. 
Ins., N.H.; b. Hennicker, Merrimac Co., 
N.H..1823; (Dartmouth Coll., 1840.) "Again 
Brethren and Equals," p. 497: "Patriotic 
Training in our Schools, p. 540. 

Peabody, Andrew Preston, Cong, min., 
theological writer, educator; b. Beverly, 
Mass., 1811 ; (Harv. Coll., 1826.) " Moses in 
Sight of the Promised Land," p. 12. 

Pedro II. de Alcantara, Dom, Emperor of 
Brazil; b. 1825. At Philadelphia Centen- 
nial, 1876, p. 513. 

Penn, William, philanthropist, founded 
Pennsylvania; b. London, Eng., 1644; d. 
1718. Tribute to (Duponceaui, p. 324. 

Percival, James Gates, scholar, poet, phy- 
sician, chemist, geologist; b. Berlin, Conn., 
179.:.; Vale Coll., 1815;) d. 1856. "Liberty 
to Athens," p. 372; "Sweet to die for Coun- 
try," p. 481 : ' The Graves of the Patriots," 
p. 433; "The Eagle," p. 437; " Polish War- 
Song," p. 466. 

Phelps, Sylvanus Dryden, Bapt. min., 
preacher, writer, poet; b. Suffield, Conn., 
1816; (Brown Univ., 1844.) "The New 
Song of Freedom," p. 419. 

Phillips, Charles, lawyer, orator, author; 
b. Sligo, Ireland, 1788; d. 1859. "The At- 
tributes of Washington," p. 157. 

Phillips, Wendell, scholar, reformer, 
lecturer, orator; b. Boston, 1811; (Harv. 
Coll., 1831 ;) d. 1884. Tribute to O'Connell, 
p. 343. 

Pichat, Michel, dramatic poet; b. Vienne, 
France, 1786; d. 1828. "Sacrifice for Coun- 
try" (Tragedy of ' Leonidas"), p. 34. 

Pickard, Josiah Little, scholar, educator; 
Pres. Iowa Univ.; b. Rowley, Mass., 1824; 
(Bowdoin Coll., Me., 1844.) "The American 
School system of the Future." p. 58,6. 

Pierpont, John, Unit. min.. poet; b. Litch- 
field, Conn.. 1785; (Yale Coll.. 1804 ; d. 1866. 
"The Pilgrim Fathers.— where are they?" 
p. 82; '■Warren's Address," p. 405. 

Pitt, William (Lord Chatham), orator, 
statesman, America's friend; b. Westmin- 
ster, London, Eng., 1708; d. 1778. "Great 
Britain warned of Danger," p. 98; "Re- 
moval of the Boston Garrison demanded," 
p. 105; Address in 1777, p 127; Opposes the 
use of savages in warfare, p. 132; Anony- 
mous Tribute to. p. 322. 

Potter, Henry Codman. Prot. Epis. bishop, 
author; b. Schenectady, N Y.. 1835. Offi- 
ciated at Constitutional Centennial, Phila., 
1887, p. 516. 

Pownall, Thomas, antiquarian, author; 
Gov. Mass. Bay Col., 1757; Gov. N.J.. 1759; 
b. Lincoln. Eng., 1722; d. 1805. Predicts 
America's future, p. 555, 

Pratt, Charles (Lord Camden), statesman, 
jurist; b. 1715; d. 1791. Sustains Lord 
Chatham, p. 99. 

Procter, Bryan Waller ("Barry Corn- 
wall"), lawyer, dramatic poet: b. Eng., 
about 1790; a. 1874. "The Overthrow of 
Belshazzar," p. 26. 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



593 



Randall, James Ryder, journalist, poet, 
b. 18:39, author of " My Maryland, p. 534. 

Randolph, John, orator statesman ; U. S. 
Sen Va.; b. Chesterfield Co., Va., 1773; d. 
1833. '• Vast Territory no Bar to Union, 

P Ransom, General Matthew Whitaker, law- 
yer, soldier, legislator: U. s. Sen , N.C.; b 
Warren Co., N.C.. 1S26; (Univ. N C. 1847.) 
"The Value of the Union.— 1 he Battle ot 
New Orleans." p. 299 (from " North Caro- 
lina Speaker"). 

Raymond, Ilobert Raikes, educator .au- 
thor; ; b. N.Y., 1817; (Union Coll., N.Y., 1837.) 
"Christianity and Democracy harmo- 
nize," p. 222 (from Raymond's " Patriotic 
Speaker"). . t . , 

Read, Thomas Buchanan, artist, poet; b. 
Chester Co., Penn., 1822; d. 18/2. "The 
Rising in '76," p. 118. 

Regulus. Marcus Attilius, Roman gen- 
eral, consul about 200 B.C. Supposed 
speech before Senate of Carthage (Kel- 
logg), p. 389. _„^ , 

Revere, Paul, patriot; b. Boston, l/oo; d. 
1818. " Paul Revere's Ride" (Longtellow), 

P Rice. Alexander Hamilton, merchant, ora- 
tor; Gov. Mass.: b. Newton Lower tails, 
Mass., 1818; (Union Coll., N.Y., 1844.) 
Tribute to Sumner, p. 352. 

Richardson, William Merchant, lawyer, 
hirist; b. Pelham, N.H., 1774; (Harv. Coll., 
1797 ; i d. ISoS. " The Pounders of our Gov- 
ernment," p. 71. m ., 

Rienzi, Nicola Gabrini, Roman Tribune ; 
birth indefinite; d. 1354 Supposed address 
to the Romans (Mitford), p. 398. 

Robespierre, Maximilien Marie Isidore, 
demagogue, visionary, revolutionist; h. 
Arras, France, 175S; executed, 1794. His 
Last Speech, p. 409, translated by Epes 
Sargent. 

Robinson, Henry Cornelius, lawyer, ora- 
tor writer; b. Hartford, Conn., 1832; 
(Yale Coll., 1S53.) " Dedication of Putnam s 
Monument, IhSS." p. 202. 

Robinson, William Erigena, lawyer, 
journalist, politician; b. Unagh, Ireland, 
1814- (Yale Coll., 1811.) "Union Song of 
the Celt," p. 468. 

Ross, General Lawrence Sullivan, lawyer. 
soldier, of Va. and Ky. parentage; Gov. 
Texas: b. Bentonsport, Iowa,' 1838; (Wes- 
leyan Univ., Ala., 1858.) "All under the 
same Banner now," p. 503. 

Sargent, Epes, journalist, scholar; b. 
Gloucester. Mass., 1812; d. 1880. Compiler 
of Standard Speaker and Readers. (Courtesy 
of 'arncs O. Sargent, executor, and Silver 
Brothers. Burdett & Co., Publishers, ac- 
knowledged.) .... 

Schiller, von, Johann Christoph Friednch, 
dramatic poet; b. Marbach. Germany, 
1759 ; d. 1805. " Tell's Address to the Swiss," 

Scott, Sir Walter, novelist. poet; b. Edin- 
burgh. Scotland, 1771; d. 1832. "Love of 

Sennacherib, king of Assyria ; killed, 681 
B.C. His Annv destroyed (Byron), p. 25. 

Seward, William Henry, lawyer, orator, 
statesman ; Gov. N.Y.; U. S. Sen., N.Y. ; b. 
Florida, N.Y.. 1801; (Union Coll., 1820;) 
d. 1872. "America's True Greatness," p. 



Seymour, Horatio, lawyer, politician, 
statesman ; Gov. N.Y. ; b. Onondaga Co., 
N. Y., 1811 ; d. 1886. " The Saratoga Monu- 
ment begun," p 1S3. _ 

Shakespeare, William, dramatic poet; b. 
Stratford -on-Avon, Eng., 1564; d. 1616. 
"Cassius instigates Brutus against Ccesar, 
p. 60 ; " Antony's Speech over the Body 
of Csesar," p. 62 ; " Brutus's Speech on the 
Death of Csesar," p. 65. 

Sharp, Daniel, Bapt. min., journalist, 
preacher; b. Huddersfield, Eng., 1783; d. 
Boston, Mass.. 1853. " Popular Government 
the Most Just," p. 228. 

Shaw, David T., "Columbia the Land ot 
the Brave," "The Gem of the Ocean," 
" The Red. White, and Blue," p. 435. 

Sheil, Richard Lalor, patriot, orator; b. 
Dublin, Ireland, 1797; (Trin. Coll., Uubl. ;) 
d 1851. "The Irish Insurrection," p. 3/3. 

Sheldon, William Evarts, scientist, edu- 
cator, educational journalist; Sec. Am. 
Inst. Civics ; b. Dorset, Vt., 1833. " Instruc- 
tion in Civics as a Patriotic Duty," p. 545. 

Sheridan, General George Augustus, sol- 
dier, lecturer, orator ; b. Millbury, Mass., 
1840. '■ Let us rejoice together," p. o05. 

Sherman, General William Tecumseh, sol- 
dier, Commanding General U.S.A.; b. 
Lancaster, O., 1820; (U. S. Mil. Acad., 1840.) 
"Belligerent Non-Combatants," p. 502; 
Practical Hints from his Scrap- Book, p. 568. 
Sigourney, Lydia (nee Huntley), poetess, 
author; b. Norwich, Conn.. 1781: d. 1865. 
"Stars in my Country's Sky, are ye all 
there?" p. 444. 

Simms. William Gilmore, novelist, poet, 
writer; b. Charleston, S.C.. 1806; d. 1870. 
"The Battle of Eutaw," p. 453. 

Simpson, Matthew, Meth. Epis. bishop, 
journalist, writer; Pres. Indiana Asbury 
(now De Pauw) Univ.; b. Cadiz. O., 1810; 
d. 1884. Officiated at Opening of Centen- 
nial Exposition, Phila., 1876, p. 510. 

Smith, Samuel Francis, Bapt. min., jour- 
nalist, lyric poet; b. Boston, Mass., 1808. 
" My Country, 'tis of thee," p. 581. 

Smith, William Dexter, Jr., poet, musical 
journalist, author: b. Salem (now Pea- 
'ljo.lv), Mass., 1840; (Salem High School.) 
"Centennial Hymn, 1876— Our National 
Banner," p. 516. . 

Smyth, William, scholar, pnet ; b. Liver- 
pool, Eng., 1766; (Cambridge Univ.;) d. 
1819. "The Character of Washington, p. 

Socrates, soldier, philosopher; b. Athens, 
Greece, 470 B.C. ; d. 399 B.C. " Virtue before 
Riches," p. 43; "The Last Hours of" (Sar- 
gent), p. 316. . . 

Sparks, Jared, biograpner. historian; 
Pres. Harv. Coll.; b. Willington, Conn., 
1789; (Harv. Coll.. 1815:) d. 1866. "The 
Example of our Forefathers." p. 268. 

Spartacus, a Thracian soldier, 71 B.C. 
" Address to the Gladiators" (Kellogg), p. 
391 

Sprague. Charles, poet: b. Boston, Mass., 
1791 : d. 1875. " The Fathers of New Eng- 
land," p. 85. 

Sprague, Colonel Homer Baxter, educator. 
soldier, author; Pres. Univ. North Dakota ; 
b. Sutton, Mass., 1829; (Yale Coll., 1852.) 
" Milton gives Eyesight to Liberty," p. 319. 

Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, politician, 
legislator, statesman ; b. Taliaferro Co., Ga., 



594 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



1812; d. 1883. "Separate as billows, but 
one as the sea." p. 499. 

Stevens, William Bacon, Prot. Epis. 
bishop, pulpit orator, historical writer; b. 
Bath. Me., 1815; (Dartmouth Coll., 1837;) 
d. 1887. Officiated at Centennial Exercises, 
Phila., 1876. p. 513. 

Stewart, John Wolcott, lawyer, legislator ; 
Gov. Vt; b. Middlebury, Vt., 1825; (Mid- 
dlebury Coll., 1846.) Address at Benning- 
ton Monument Exercises, 1887, p. 198. 

Stone, William leete, Jr., historical 
writer; b. N.Y., 1835; (Brown Univ., 1858.) 
Took part in Saratoga Centennial, p. 170. 

Story, Joseph, legal author, jurist; b. 
Marblehead, Mass., 1779; (Harvard Coll., 
1798;) d. 1845. "American Responsibility 
measured," p. 277. 

Strong:, Josiah, Cong, min., journalist, 
author; b. Hudson, O., 1847; (Western Re- 
serve Coll., now Univ., or Adelbert Coll., 
Cleveland. O.) "The Anglo-Saxon and the 
World's Future," p. 560. 

Stuart, Isaac William, classical scholar, 
orator, author ; b. New Haven, Conn., 1809 ; 
(Yale Coll., 1828;) d. 1861. Tribute to Jon- 
athan Trumbull, p. 325. 

Sumner, Charles, lawyer, orator, states- 
man ; U. S. Sen., Mass.; b. Boston, 1811; 
(Harv. Coll., 1830 ;) d. 1874. " The Reign 
of Peace foreshadowed," p. 257 ; Tribute to 
(Rice), p. 352 ; Tribute to t Lamar), p. 353. 

Tacitus, Caius Cornelius, Roman histo- 
rian ; b. 55 a.D. ; d. uncertain. " Galgacus 
for, on good authority, CalgacusJ to the 
Caledonians," p. 393. 

Taylor, Bayard, writer, poet, traveller ; 
b. Chester Co., Penn., 1825 ; d. 1878. " Lib- 
erty's Latest Daughter," p. 514. 

Taylor, Henry, Eng. clergyman ; b. 1710; 
d. 1775. " What Makes a Hero ?" p. 314. 

Thomson. Charles West, Prot. Epis. 
clerg. ; b. Phila., Penn.. 1798; d. 1879. " The 
American Eagle," p. 439. 

Tocqueville, de, Alexis Charles Henri 
Clerel, statesman, political philosopher; 
b. Paris, France, 1805 ; d. 1859. " Socialism 
and Democracy incompatible," p. 220. 

Toussaint L'Ouverture, Liberator of St. 
Domingo ; b. 1743, in Hayti (St. Domingo); 
betrayed and starved by Napoleon Bona- 
parte, 1803. Noticed, p. 311. 

Trench, Richard Chenevix, Prot. Epis. 
Archbp. of Dublin, Ireland: poet, philolo- 
gist, theologian ; b. 1807 ; d. 1886. " Harmo- 
san," p. 475. 

Tucker, General John Randolph, lawyer, 
soldier, orator; b. Winchester, Va., 1823; 
(Univ. Va.) "The Supremacy of Organic 
Law," p. 527. 

Tupper, Martin Farquhar, epigrammatic 
writer and poet ; b. London, 1810. "Amer- 
ica an Aggregate of Nations," p. 290. 

Tlpham, Thomas Cogswell, Cong, min., 
scholar, author; b. Deerfield, N.H., 1799; 
(Dartmouth Coll.;) d. 1872. " The Song of 
the Pilgrims," p. 84. 

Van Buren, Martin, politician, states- 
man ; U. S. Sen., N.Y. ; sixth Prest. U. S. ; 
b. Kinderhook, N.Y., 1782; d. 1862. " Amer- 
ica without a Parallel," p. 286. 

Vance, Zebulon Baird, politician, states- 
man; Gov. N.C. ; U. S. Sen.. N.C. ; b. Bun- 
combe Co., N.C, 1830; (Wash. Coll., Tenn., 
and Univ. N.C.) Commends Washington 
to youth, p. 139. 



Vasa, Gustavus, king of Sweden ; b. 1496 ; 
d. 1559. Appeal to the Swedes (Brooke), p. 
403. 

Verplanck, Gulian Crommelin, essayist, 
scholar ; b. N.Y., 1786 ; d. 1870. " America's 
Contributions to the World," p. 293. 

Victoria Alexandrina, Queen-Empress; 
b. at Kensington Palace, Eng., Mav 24, 
1819. Tribute on Jubilee of reign (Win- 
throp), p. 365. 

Vincent, John Heyl, Meth. Epis. bish., 
lecturer, author; founder of Chautauqua 
Reading Method : b. Tuscaloosa, Ala., 
1832; (Wesleyan Inst., Newark, N.J.) "The 
Patriotic Chautauqua Movement," p. 547. 

Ware, Henry, Jr., Unit, min., writer; b. 
Hingham, Mass., 1794 ; (Harv. Coll. Prof. ;) 
d. 1843. "The Vision of Liberty," p. '"" 



commanding U.S.A. ; First Pres. U.S. ; b. 
Westmoreland Co., Va., Feb. 22, 1732 ; d. 
1799. Commended to youth (Vance), p. 139; 
"Brightest Name" (Cook), p. 140: "Before 
Battle of Long Island," p. 142 ; " Farewell 
to the Army," p. 143; "Resignation as 
Commander-in-Chief," p. 144; First speech 
in Congress, p. 145; Receives the French 
colors, p. 147; " Farewell to the People," p. 
148 ; Character of (Smyth), p. 152 ; Memory 
of (Everett), p. 154; Glory of (Brougham), 
p. 156; Attributes of (Phillips), p. 157; 
Foreign policy of (Fox), p. 159 ; Birthday 
of (Choate), p. 160: Birthday ever honored 
(Howland), p. 161; "Washington and 
Franklin Memorials linked" (J.Q.Adams), 
p. 163; "Centennial Birthdav" (Webster), 
p. 164; "Memorabilia," pp. 166-67; "At 
White Plains," note, p. 167 ; " The Mt. Ver- 
non Tribute," p. 168: Monument ceremo- 
nies (Winthrop), pp. 177-181 ; " Relations to 
Lafayette" (Winthrop), p. 194; "He still 
lives" (Everett), p. 309; His Lament for 
Lafayette (Bradford), p. 334. 

Wayland, Prancis, Bapt. min., scholar, 
political economist, author; Pres. Brown 
Univ., Providence, R.I.; b. N.Y., 1796: 
(Union Coll., N.Y. ;) d. 1865. " International 
Sympathies on the Increase," p. 250. 

Webster, Daniel, lawyer, orator, poli- 
tician, statesman; U. S. Sen., Mass.; b. 
Salisbury, N.H., 1782: (Dartmouth Coll., 
N.H., 1801;). d. 1852. Bunker Hill Monu- 
ment Addresses, pp. 175-177 ; Centennial 
of Washington's Birthday, p. 164; "The 
Present Age," p. 206; " Europe and Amer- 
ica," p. 251; "America in the Front Rank 
of Nations," p. 287; "Liberty and Union 
One and Inseparable," p. 298; "Webster 
still lives" (Boston Conner), p. 310; Sup- 
posed speech of John Adams, p. 311; 
Revolutionary Veterans honored, p. 330 ; 
Adams and Jefferson honored, p. 337; 
" The Colleagues of John Adams," p. 339 ; 
Tribute to Calhoun, p. 317 ; " Our Obliga- 
tions to Greece." p. 368; " Future Genera- 
tions summoned to witness our Work," 
p. 580. 

Wert, John Howard, educator, essayist, 
poet; b. near Gettysburg, Penn., 1841; 
(Pennsylvania Coll., 1S61.) "The Indian 
Warrior's Last Lament," p. 384. 

Whipple, Edwin Percy, essayist, lecturer, 
author; b. Gloucester. .Mass., 1*19; d. 1886. 
"American Libertv Reasonable and Just," 
p. 276. 



BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



595 



Whittier, John Greenleaf, member of 
" Society of the Friends," philanthropist, 
poet ; b. Haverhill, Mass., 1808. " The Battle 
of Lexington," p. 116; -'Centennial Hymn," 
p. 510. 

Wightman, John Thomas, Meth. min., 
writer, pulpit orator; b. Charleston, S.C., 
1826; (Charleston Coll., 1846.) Fort Moul- 
trie Centennial Poem, Extract, p. 172. 

Wilkes, John, politician, orator; b. Lon- 
don, Eng., 1737; (Leyden Univ.;) d. 1797. 
"American Enterprise —The Fisheries," 
p. 294. 

Winship, Edward Albert, Cong, min., sol- 
dier, lecturer, educational journalist; b. 
West Bridgewater, Mass., 1845. "Our Edu- 
cation must be American," p. 538. 

Winthrop, John, patriot, statesman ; Gov. 
Mass., 1629, and nine times in succession 
until his death ; b. Suffolk, Eng., 1588; d. 
1649. "True Liberty honors Authority," 
p. 215. 

Winthrop, Robert Charles, scholar, his- 



torian, statesman; Speaker of the U. S. 
House of Representatives; U. S. Sen., 
Mass.; b. Boston, Mass., May 12, 1809; 
(Harv. Coll., 1826.) Addresses at laying the 
corner-stone and at completion of the 
Washington Monument, pp. 177-181; Ad- 
dresses at Yorktown Centennial, pp. 194- 
197; Jubilee Ode to Queen Victoria, p. 365. 

Witherspoon, Jeremiah, min. Cumber- 
land Presb. Church, takes part in Consti- 
tutional Centennial, Phila., 1887, p. 526. 

Woodbury, Levi, lawyer, jurist, states- 
man; Gov. N.H.; l T . S. Sen., N.H.; b. 
Francestown, N.H., 1789; (Dartmouth Coll., 
N.H., 1809;) d. 1851. "American Citizen- 
ship and its Duties," p. 281. 

Woolsey, Theodore Dwigrht, Cong, min., 
Greek scholar, standard writer upon inter- 
national law, author of classical works; 
Pres. Yale Coll. twentv-five years ; b. New 
York City, October 31, 1801; (Yale Coll., 
1820; also in Germany.) "The True Posi- 
tion of America," p. 556. 



THE END. 



